


The Ghost of the Howling Plains

by pipermca



Series: Black on White on Black [4]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Camping, Canon-Typical Violence, Ghosts, IDW-based AU, M/M, Post-War, Vacation, ghost story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-03 22:43:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12156300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipermca/pseuds/pipermca
Summary: A vorn after recovering from his accident, Jazz decides that a vacation is exactly what he and Prowl need. However, the trip to the Howling Plains ends up being a lot more exciting than he’d expected.





	1. Ghost Stories

Jazz’s chassis practically vibrated on his tires with excitement as he and Prowl drove to the rendezvous point in the outskirts of Iacon City. All of the wheedling and convincing and planning and coordination was finally coming to fruition today. 

Today they started their first vacation together!

::How are you holding up? I know this is far earlier than you usually come out of recharge.:: Prowl’s concern was evident even over the comm line as they wended their way through the maze of highways and streets.

::Don’t ya worry about me, Prowler. Not havin’ to work last night means I’m fresh and ready to go today.:: 

Jazz was, admittedly, a little out of sorts as he waited for his systems to adapt to the early hour. Normally at this time of day, Jazz would have only just gone into recharge a few groons ago. Playing at the club or at other engagements meant he was often out very late into the night. Prowl, on the other hand, didn’t have any problem waking at this hour. He would normally just be coming out of recharge now to prepare to go to work at the Ministry of Reconstruction.

And that was part of the problem, part of the reason why this vacation had become so important to Jazz: their schedules did not leave a lot of together time. After playing late into the night, Jazz would return to the flat he shared with his conjunx endura, refuel, unwind a bit, and then collapse into recharge. At daybreak, Prowl would wake from recharge and go into work, but Jazz wouldn’t wake until very late in the morning. Most cycles, Prowl would try to come home mid-afternoon so that he could have some time with Jazz before the musician had to leave for the club that he played at or for the party he was working that night. Then, after Jazz left for work, Prowl would do some more work at home until it was time for him to go into recharge. 

A full vorn after their union as conjunxes, Jazz decided that something had to be done, at least on a temporary basis. One way or another, he wanted to get Prowl away from all of his work, he wanted to do something with Prowl, and he wanted to do something they hadn’t done before. 

It took some convincing, but Jazz finally talked Prowl into taking a vacation with him.

After asking around for advice and offering a few different choices to Prowl, the two of them settled on an interesting vacation that appealed to both of them: a trip to the Howling Plains. Jazz planned everything, and it was all going smoothly until he tried to pay for the trip.

“We’re not taking your money,” Bluestreak had said.

“But I’m hirin’ ya, and that means I need to pay ya!” Jazz said.

“No,” Bluestreak repeated. “We may do this for a living, but this time’s on us. As far as we’re concerned, we’re just going camping with our friends.”

Bluestreak and Hound ran a guiding business that catered mostly to mechs originally from the colonies. Many of them had never seen Cybertron’s wildlife, but now wanted to see the majestic creatures they’d only seen on vids. Bluestreak and Hound also had a small number of high-end clients who enjoyed trophy hunting. Those customers weren’t their favourite, since they tended to be rich and very demanding, but the amount that they were willing to pay meant that Bluestreak and Hound could take more of the sight-seeing excursions that they preferred... Sight-seeing excursions like the one that Jazz had requested for himself and Prowl.

::There they are!:: The pair had rounded a turn and saw Bluestreak and Hound standing near a trailer in a pulloff on the side of the highway. Hound waved when he saw them pull into the turnoff. Prowl and Jazz transformed, and the mechs exchanged greetings.

Bluestreak smiled at Jazz and Prowl. “So, it looks like we’re going to have perfect weather for our trip. Did you two remember everything that was on the list I sent you? We brought enough equipment and rations for everyone, but if you wanted something special I figured I should remind you to bring it yourselves.”

“The list was not very long. We have everything we require that was on it,” Prowl replied. He tilted one door wing upwards, and Bluestreak understood the motion immediately.

“Yeah, we really should get going. We want to be over the pass and up onto the plateau before it starts getting dark. I’ll lead, and Hound will bring up the rear to make sure we don’t lose anyone. Let’s move out!”

The four mechs transformed, and after Hound hooked himself up to the trailer, they were off. Jazz bounced on his tires again as Iacon City faded into the distance in his rear view mirror. Their vacation had officially started!

* * *

The views in the mountain pass were incredible. As they drove, Jazz thought back to the first time he remembered Prowl bringing him into the mountains, while he was still recovering from his accident. He decided that he needed to talk Prowl into coming up here more often.

They had stopped once for fuel during the drive through the mountains. The cliff’s edge dropped away precipitously here, but the view of the valley beneath them made Jazz’s ventilations stall. “That’s amazing,” Jazz said, sipping at his energon.

Hound had settled on a rock near him, drinking his own fuel. He pointed down the way they had come. “See that shimmering, down near the foot of the mountain? That’s the haze from the heat generated by Iacon City.” Gesturing further towards the horizon, he said, “And if you enhance your vision just a bit, you can see the sunlight glittering off the Acid Wastes.”

“I am impressed,” said Prowl. “I would not think that you could see that far.”

“And if you turn the other way,” said Hound, pointing in the opposite direction, “you can just see the Howling Plains. See the dip between those two peaks? Look carefully; you might need to readjust your vision again... You can just see the silvery colour of the edges of the plains.”

Jazz made an awed noise. He’d pored over the maps of this area when he was planning the trip, so he knew exactly how far the distance was, from the Acid Wastes in one direction to the Howling Plains in the other. “This is amazing!” he said.

“Blue stopped here for a reason,” said Hound, smiling. “This is the highest elevation in the trip, and it’s the best viewpoint in the mountains. From here we’ll start going back downhill.”

“No wonder I’m running so low on energy,” Jazz said, checking his altimeter. “We’ve practically been driving straight up.” Jazz took an image capture of both views to save for later, then got the other three mechs to pose in front of the views. “Thanks!” he chirped after getting his pictures. “When we get back into town I’m gonna make sure I bore everyone with these.”

“Come on,” said Bluestreak, helping Hound with the trailer. “We’ve got a fair distance to cover before we get to our first campsite.”

* * *

As the sun dipped towards the horizon, they finally arrived at their campsite. After coming out of the steep terrain of the mountains, the flatter terrain of the plateau was welcome, if not nearly as scenic.

Jazz was exhausted. He did not remember ever driving that far in a single day, although he was sure he must have done lots of long trips before his accident. Still, he helped Hound set up the tents, while Prowl and Bluestreak got the rest of the gear set up.

Jazz was glad that Hound knew how the tents went together, since they appeared to just be a jumble of rods and tarp to him. Jazz tucked the end of one rod into a pocket in the tarp, struggling to bend it just so. “You’d think that they would made these things easier to put together,” he grumbled.

“These are the same design as the tents we used during the war,” Hound replied, confusion evident in his field.

Shrugging, Jazz said, “Yeah, well, I don’t remember none of that.” He swore as the next rod jumped out of the pocket and thwacked him across the face plates. “I’m surprised we won if we had to use these slaggin’ things!”

With a laugh, Hound came to Jazz’s rescue. “You’re bending it too hard. Here, let me show you.”

Just after the sun had set, Hound and Jazz finally had the two tents set up, and Prowl and Bluestreak had finished preparing the fuel for the evening. The four mechs settled around the power generator, their faces lit by its cheery glow. They passed around a plate of treats that Hound had made as they drank their fuel.

Jazz still felt tired, and he leaned against Prowl’s frame. The ex-Enforcer had encircled him with an arm, and now gently stroked the plating on his shoulder. 

“You look beat, Jazz,” Hound said. “Are you going to be all right? We’ve still got a ways to go to get to the plains.”

Jazz waved a hand dismissively. “I’m just not used to drivin’ this far, and all uphill, in one day, that’s all,” he said. “A little fuel and I’ll be fine. I think I’m gonna recharge well tonight, though.”

“If you think you can stay awake for a while longer, we can tell stories,” said Bluestreak. “It’s traditional to tell scary stories around the generator at night when camping. If you’re interested, I can tell you a story about the place where we’re heading.” 

Jazz struggled to sit up straight again. “What kind of scary stories?” he asked. “Ghost stories?” 

Prowl huffed. “There are no such things as ghosts.”

“Just because somethin’ ain’t real don’t mean you can’t tell stories about them,” countered Jazz. He grabbed another treat from the plate and turned back to Bluestreak. “So... **Are** they true stories?”

Ignoring the scoffing noise that came from Prowl, Bluestreak replied, “Well, the mechs that live around here say that this one’s true. Some of them even say they’ve seen evidence of it themselves.”

Stretching out a leg, Bluestreak gave the power generator a nudge so that its light flickered. The uneven light rippled across his faceplates as he looked around at the other mechs. In a quiet voice, he began to speak. “It started just after the war ended. Cybertron was in ruins: its cities were destroyed, and energon was hard to come by. But the reformatting had restored many of the areas of the planet that had previously been lifeless.

“Two friends, designated Grouser and Blacklight, arrived on Cybertron from one of the colonies. They wanted to explore the newly restored planet, so they set off on an expedition... Much like the one that we’re on right now.”

“What colony were they from?” asked Prowl suddenly.

Bluestreak frowned at Prowl. “I’m not sure. It doesn’t really matter to the story,” he replied.

Prowl made a noncommittal noise. “I am just trying to get a grasp on the facts that are being presented.”

“Prowl, it’s a story! Just let him tell it!” said Jazz, giving Prowl a playful shove. Prowl flicked his door wings and closed his mouth.

“Anyway these two mechs drove and drove until they reached a beautiful place of silver grass and rolling hills. Wildlife was plentiful, and there were energon springs within easy driving distance. But there was danger too: canyons that would open and close, creating chasms kilometers deep, chasms that opened right into the heart of Cybertron itself.”

“The Howling Plains,” Jazz whispered, entranced.

Bluestreak nodded. “Except it wasn’t called that yet. Anyway, Grouser immediately fell in love with the place, and decided that it would be a good place to set up his home. However, Blacklight missed the city, and decided to return there. 

“Blacklight came back to visit Grouser every vorn, bringing him news from the city and supplies. In return, Grouser gave Blacklight processed sweet energon, straight from the nearby springs. This was a good trade for the two mechs, and it went on for many vorn.

“However, one time that Blacklight came to visit Grouser, the mech was nowhere to be found. Worried, Blacklight hunted around the area, searching for any sign of his friend. The only trace he found was a set of tracks that drove right off the edge of a cliff, into the depths of Cybertron below.”

Jazz gasped audibly, and grabbed for Prowl’s hand.

Bluestreak smiled at Jazz and continued, nudging the power generator so that it would flicker again. “Blacklight continued to search for his friend, but the canyons are treacherous places for any mech who is not familiar with them. Eventually, Blacklight gave up, consigning his friend’s frame to the depths of the planet.

“Ever since then, mechs living in the area started to hear ghostly cries at night when they traveled the plains; howls of sorrow and terror. Some mechs even reported seeing a glowing white figure, drifting over the hills. They say that it’s Grouser. They say...” His voice dropped in volume. “They say that it’s the mech who fell into the planet: bemoaning his loss, and warning other travelers to watch their path.

“And that is how the place got its name: the Howling Plains.”

Prowl huffed again. “You are trying to tell us that the area got its name because of a clumsy mech, and not because of the way the wind **howls** ,” he emphasized the word, “through the canyons?”

Jazz shoved at Prowl again, laughing. “C’mon, mech. Don’t ruin a good ghost story with facts.”

Prowl lifted his door wings. “I understand the appeal of telling scary stories in the dark. But would the stories not be more frightening if they were true?”

Jazz grabbed another treat and then leaned back on his hands. “Ok, then, why don’t you tell us a scary story that meets your criteria?”

The black and white mech thought for a moment. “Any number of stories from my days in mechaforensics could be considered ‘scary’.”

“A police procedural!” Jazz exclaimed dramatically. “Yer right, Prowl, the thought of all that paperwork does fill my spark with fear!” 

Prowl gave Jazz an indulgent look and waited for the others’ laughter to fade before continuing. “For example, there was the time that we thought there was a serial killer at work in the slums in Iacon. Over the course of an orbital cycle, thirteen mechs were found deactivated. Their frames were dismembered, and their spark cases were missing. It was only after three more mechs were killed in a medical facility, all in a single night, that we discovered it was the work of a sparkeater. Several Enforcers, including me, posed as bait to lure the sparkeater into a trap so that it could be killed.” Prowl stopped, and looked around the circle. The other three mechs were all staring at him, horrified expressions on their face plates. “What?” he asked.

“That’s... Wow, that’s...” stuttered Hound.

“That’s awful!” exclaimed Bluestreak. “And terrifying! Sixteen mechs killed by a sparkeater? Why would you tell us that right before we have to go into recharge?”

Prowl lowered his door wings. “I thought we were telling scary stories. Is a story not more frightening when you know that it is true?”

“Love, there’s a difference between a fun scary story and a horrifying scary story!” said Jazz, shaking his helm with a smile. “It’s fun to be scared of things you know aren’t true. But if it’s something that really happened...”

“Hey, my story was true, too,” complained Bluestreak. “At least, according to the mechs that live near the plains.”

“It cannot be true,” said Prowl insistently. “Ghosts are not real.”

“Well, you three can argue about this for the rest of the night, but I’m going to get some recharge,” said Hound, climbing to his pedes. 

Jazz looked around at their camp. “So, uh, do we need to set a guard? Take turns at guard duty and all that?”

Bluestreak shook his helm. “Nah, we have motion detectors set up in a perimeter around the camp. If they detect any motion, they’ll wake me and Hound and we can check it out. But when they do go off, it’s usually just a turbofox or something.”

Jazz nodded, but he must have still looked concerned. Knowing what was on Jazz’s mind, Prowl softly said, “The war is over, Jazz.” He gave his hand a quick squeeze. 

“Right.” Jazz reminded himself that the war had been over for almost a thousand vorn, even if it had only seemed like two vorn to him. “I’m still gettin’ used to that idea,” he admitted. 

As Prowl and Jazz arranged themselves for recharge in their tent, Prowl put his hand on Jazz’s arm. “My apologies for ruining an otherwise pleasant evening,” he said, his field shot through with remorse. “I did not understand that my story would be unacceptable.”

“Aww, don’t worry about it, Prowler, and ya didn’t ruin anything. You just take things a little too literally sometimes.” He kissed Prowl gently and then snuggled up beside him on their sleeping pads. “Besides,” he said softly. “I actually found part of that story a little hot.”

Prowl glanced down at Jazz’s visor. “What part?” he asked, tipping his upper wing towards Jazz slightly.

“The part about you posing as bait for a sparkeater.” He nibbled on the bottom of Prowl’s jaw. “My brave Prowler, putting himself in danger to save others.”

Chuckling, Prowl nuzzled Jazz’s forehelm. “I was an Enforcer. I was just doing my duty.” He pulled his helm back to look at Jazz again. “Besides, you did the same sort of thing all the time during the war.”

“Don’t remember,” purred Jazz, then pressed his lips against Prowl’s again. He ran his hand across Prowl’s shoulders and then down the front of his upper door wing, dragging his claws down its surface.

Prowl shivered, and reached up to grasp Jazz’s wrist, stilling his motion. “I thought you were tired,” he said with a smile.

“I am. But maybe – just a quicky? Please?” Jazz begged, pulling his wrist free and sliding his thumb across Prowl’s hip port. 

Prowl pressed his lips to Jazz’s again. Suddenly, Prowl pushed him over onto his back, and Jazz squealed into Prowl’s mouth. “Shh,” Prowl whispered, straddling Jazz’s hips. “We do not want to disturb our camp mates.”

But Prowl made it very difficult for Jazz to stay quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the Halloween-themed story I've been working on! It'll update weekly-ish, with the last chapter being posted right around Halloween.
> 
> This story is a direct sequel of [Anamnesis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11554080/chapters/25949106). While it's not necessary to have read Anamnesis to enjoy this one (I hope!), it may help to provide background as to Prowl's mental state and why Jazz can't remember a lot about his past.


	2. Recollections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The camping trip continues, with much fun and absolutely NO impending peril.

A thin, reddish light seeped into the tent as Jazz came out of recharge. Prowl was gone, but the pad where he had been laying was still slightly warm. The smell of warming energon drifted into the tent, gradually pulling Jazz up and out of the tent.

The air outside the tent was frosty, but the sky was clear. “Good morning!” exclaimed Bluestreak when he saw Jazz stumbling out of the tent, stretching. “Did you recharge well? I know it can be hard to get used to recharging on those pads instead of in a proper berth. Here, have some energon, it should help get your systems going in this chill.”

Jazz sat down next to Prowl and took the cube gratefully. “Thanks. Yeah, I recharged pretty well,” he replied, smiling over his cube at Prowl. The black and white mech dipped his door wings and slid closer to Jazz. 

Bluestreak smirked as he sat across from them. “I should probably have warned you that Hound’s hearing is just as good as his sense of smell. But don’t worry,” he said, waving his door wings in an appeasing motion when he caught Prowl’s mortified expression. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to, um, indulge while camping. We’ve usually got clients with us, and when we do, we have to keep things professional. You two just reminded us that we’re not ‘on the clock,’ and we’re just doing this for fun, and, well...” He held up his cube to the other two mechs and gave them a broad smile. “Thanks for the very pleasant end to the evening.”

Jazz laughed. “Well then, I guess you’re welcome, Blue,” he said. “But thanks for the warning. We’ll try to keep it down next time.”

“Next -!” Prowl choked and glanced wide-opticked at Jazz before looking back at Bluestreak. Then he hid his face plates in his hands. 

Patting Prowl’s thigh struts, Jazz looked around the camp site. “Speaking of which, where is Hound? Is he still recharging?”

Bluestreak shook his helm. “No. He’s off doing a little bit a scouting. He smelled a herd of nosoron and went to see if he could find them.”

Based on his field, Prowl was still recovering from his bout of embarrassment, but his door wings flicked back in excitement anyway. “Wild nosoron? I’ve seen them in vids but never in person.”

Hound returned to camp shortly with news that the herd was just two kilometers away, over a small rise. “We can go check them out before breaking camp,” he said after a short discussion with Bluestreak. The mechs drove the short distance to the rise before transforming back into root mode and crouching at the crest of the hill. 

Below them, a small herd of horned nosoron grazed on the crystals that dotted the plateau. “It’s a little unusual to see them at this elevation,” Hound said quietly. 

Prowl peered at the herd as Jazz took image capture after image capture. “Will they not see us up here and become frightened?” Prowl asked.

Hound shook his helm. “No. They’re really near-sighted, and their sensors are geared towards things that are moving. So long as we hold still and stay downwind, they won’t even know we’re here.”

Nodding, Prowl said, “They are much larger than I thought they would be.”

Hound hummed in agreement. “They are kinda big, aren’t they? I’m guessing it’s because they don’t have any competition for the crystals all the way up here. The ones down on the plains are a bit smaller.”

Jazz listened to the exchange and internally preened. For their vacation, Prowl had been leaning towards going to Kaon to tour the new city, which was still being rebuilt. Jazz had lobbied hard to go camping, and Prowl finally relented. So Jazz was thrilled that Prowl seemed to be enjoying this trip just as much as he would have liked Kaon. Besides, as an employee of the Ministry of Reconstruction, Prowl would probably have tried to do some work on the side if they went to Kaon… Which would have defeated the whole purpose of taking a vacation.

After the group watched the herd for half a groon, Bluestreak finally said that it was time to get moving. “We’ve got another long drive today,” he said. “But tonight we’ll be on the edge of the Howling Plains.”

* * *

_Oh, I used to be a singer and my sounds, they were divine,_  
_I played a lil’ gig inside the Polyhexian line._  
_But time went by and war did come, my singin’ didn’t last,_  
_And my club, it did just vanish in a thermonuclear blast!_

Jazz and Hound entertained themselves for the better part of the afternoon singing ribald songs over the comm channels. Jazz had learned the songs when they were stationed on Earth, altered the lyrics for his Cybertronian friends, and then taught his versions of the songs to the other Autobots. 

Jazz didn’t remember any of that now, nor any of the songs, but Hound did. The green mech had loved the songs, and was thrilled to able to re-teach them to Jazz.

_What will we do with a drunken mech, now!_  
_What will we do with a drunken mech, now!_  
_What will we do with a drunken mech, now!_  
_Early in the cycle!_

::I do not remember this one.:: Four verses into the sixth song, Prowl broke into the comm channel. He had not said anything for almost two groons. Jazz had figured that by this point Prowl had shut off his comms, but obviously he was still listening.

::That’s because we never sang this one around the officers.:: Hound’s tone radiated amusement.

_Put him in Prowl’s office until he’s online,_  
_Put him in Prowl’s office until he’s online,_  
_Put him in Prowl’s office until he’s online,_  
_Early in the cycle!_

::But Jazz was an officer. I thought you said he taught you all of these songs in the first place.:: Prowl wasn’t dropping it, especially after that last verse.

::Aww, Jazz didn’t count. Not when it came to stuff like this!:: Bluestreak had not joined in the singing, but had obviously been enjoying the tunes.

_Scrape his frame and paint him pink, lads!_  
_Scrape his frame and paint him pink, lads!_  
_Scrape his frame and paint him pink, lads!_  
_Early in the cycle!_

::How many more verses does this song have? Are there very many more songs?:: Prowl’s tone almost verged on pleading.

Jazz relented. ::A’ight, one more. How about that last one ya sent me, Hound? The one for endin’ up an evening of drinkin’ and singin’.::

_Well, you’ve been a lovely crowd, but I need to drink a draught._  
_Now don’t you all be lettin’ that door hit you in the aft!_  
_I’m tired and beat and need some rest, I’ve really had enough,_  
_I’d love for you to just get up and kindly frag right off._

_Well frag right off, you glitches frag right off!_  
_Frag right off, you glitches frag right off!_  
_Like a swarm of Insecticons that refuse to lay right off_  
_You’ll get no more this evenin’ so you glitches frag right off!_

Their path took them across the plateau and then descended through another mountain pass. The trail (Jazz decided that he couldn’t call the bumpy and uneven path a road, not even charitably) twisted and wound its way down the steep hills. Eventually, the trail levelled out, and Bluestreak called for a stop near a grove of tall green crystals.

Since most of their driving had been downhill and the songs had kept him distracted, Jazz was pleased that he didn’t feel nearly as tired as he had the night before. He was also better at setting up the tents, and their camp was neatly arranged as the light started to fade.

By the time they finished their energon, the sun was down and the stars were beginning to appear. Bluestreak sat with his legs stretched out, resting back on his hands. Hound lay on his back, resting his helm in Bluestreak’s lap. Bluestreak absently stroked Hound’s helm as they looked up at the darkening sky.

Jazz thought that looked nice, so he arranged himself in the same manner as Hound, laying back in his own Praxian’s lap. Prowl looked down at Jazz and smiled before looking at the terrain around them. “This is really lovely. Very relaxing,” Prowl said. “I would like to thank you two for bringing us out here.”

“It’s definitely our pleasure,” Bluestreak said. “We loving coming out here. It’s one of our favourite trips to do.” He sighed contentedly, still looking up at the sky. “It’s amazing how many stars you can see when you get away from the city.”

Jazz had to agree with Bluestreak. The sky was shot through with a million points of light, and the splash of red and yellow of the nearby nebula was just rising on the horizon. “There’re so many stars I can’t even make out the constellations,” Jazz said.

“Well,” said Prowl, pointing. “There is the Matrix.” He pointed again. “And below that is the Forge of Solus Prime.”

They stared at the sky for several kliks before Hound raised his own arm to point. “See that bright star, there, near that cluster of three? Now, see the yellowish star just below it?”

“Yes,” said Prowl coldly. Jazz tipped his helm back to look at him. Prowl’s optics were focused on the yellow star. His field felt flat. “Sol, and Earth.”

“I miss it sometimes,” Hound said quietly. After a long moment he added, “I know you don’t, Prowl. And I know Blue was pretty happy to get out of there, after everything that happened. But when you got away from the fighting... It really was a beautiful place.”

Bluestreak looked down at Hound, still petting his helm. “That’s one of the reasons I love you, pup. You’ve always been able to see the beauty in the universe, even when all anyone else can see is destruction.”

Hound craned his neck to look up at Bluestreak, then focused on the sky again. “In the summer, when you got into the plains, after nightfall, these little bioluminescent insects would come out. The landscape would light up just like the night sky, with little lights blinking on and off. And in the winter, on cold damp mornings, the trees and grasses and rocks and everything would be covered in a delicate white frost, like someone had decorated the landscape with fluffy paint.” Hound stopped and laughed. “Listen to me, going on and on. I’m starting to sound like Blue.” He laughed again when Bluestreak gave him a swat.

“It’s all right, mech,” Jazz replied. He exvented. “I honestly don’t remember a thing about Earth, aside from little blips here and there, and other mechs’ memories that they’ve shared with me.” He tilted his helm to look across the light of the power generator at Hound. “If ya want, I’d like it if you showed me what you remember about it sometime.”

“Sure thing, Jazz,” Hound said, smiling back at the racer. 

They chatted for another groon, relaxing and watching the stars wheel across the sky. Finally, Jazz realized he was starting to fall into recharge, snuggled into Prowl’s lap as he was. He sat up and stretched. “If I don’t get into the tent now, I’m gonna recharge on Prowl all night, and I don’t think he’d appreciate that.”

Before Prowl could respond, they both froze as they heard a low keening sound, floating on the wind. The sound died away, then picked up again, a little louder and more like an undulating wail. It sounded like a mech in pain, or someone crying as if their spark was broken . “Is that...?” whispered Jazz, hoping he knew what the answer was. He was glad that Prowl’s optics looked as wide as his felt. Prowl had pulled his door wings down against his back protectively. 

Bluestreak burst out laughing. “You should see your faces! Yes, Jazz, that is the sound of the Howling Plains. Or,” he added with a smirk, “maybe it’s the sound of poor Grouser, wandering the plains and warning us to stay away!” He made a “wooo!” noise and wiggled his digits at them.

Flaring his wings, Prowl grimaced. “Of course it is the wind.” He accepted Jazz’s hand to climb to his pedes. “I was simply unprepared for how... realistic the howling would sound.”

“Of course,” repeated Bluestreak, still smiling. “Anyway, you’ll get to see the plains properly tomorrow. And hopefully, no ghosts bother you tonight!” 

Safe in their tent, Jazz might have gripped Prowl’s hand a little tighter than normal as the wailing noise curled around and through their tent. _It sure sounds like a mech crying_ , he thought. _Or singing something sad._ He shifted a little closer to Prowl, who had already fallen into recharge. _Just remember what Prowler said: There’s no such things as ghosts._

* * *

The next day’s drive was short. It was only midday when Bluestreak called for a stop, and they set up camp near some crystals on top of a hill, near a burbling energon spring. 

“We’ll stay here for a few cycles before moving on. There are some interesting things to see in the area,” said Hound. “Today’s first stop is an energon fall. Tomorrow we’ll take you to see the canyons; that’ll be an all-day trip.”

Jazz watched Bluestreak check his rifle before slinging it onto his back. “I thought we weren’t going hunting,” he said.

“We aren’t, but sometimes the hunting comes to us,” said Bluestreak, checking another rifle and handing it to Hound. “I’m not expecting any trouble, but we’ve seen pneuma-lions around here lots of times, so we’re pretty sure there’s a pride or two that live here. We’ve also seen hyenabots once or twice, and we’ve heard there’s a pack of hellhounds that move in and out of the area. It would be pretty rare for any of them to attack a group of four mechs, but it’s better to be prepared.”

Jazz could feel the approval in Prowl’s field, and smiled. If there was ever a mech who liked to be prepared for any eventuality, it was Prowl.

The energon fall was beautiful. It flowed out of the mountains they had just left, cascading down a cliff into a pool below. From there, it fed the stream that flowed past their campsite.

Prowl was utterly transfixed. “I have never seen so much raw energon flowing freely before,” he murmured.

Jazz secretly took some image captures of Prowl’s face plates as he gazed up at the fall, his optics bright and his mouth hanging slightly open. Slag, he was beautiful when he was really enjoying something. Jazz allowed himself another quiet thrill that he had finally managed to get Prowl away from work and off to do something special and different.

That night in their tent, Jazz surprised Prowl by pinning him to the recharge pad, and kissing him soundly until Prowl pawed at Jazz’s chest. Jazz pulled away with a quiet rev of his engine.

“What brought this on?” Prowl panted. A thread of desire curled its way into the black-and-white mech’s field.

Jazz slid a hand down Prowl’s side, plucking and fingering joins in his armor as he went. “You did, ya silly mech. The way you looked today. The way you smiled. The way your optics sparkled when ya saw the energon fall.”

Prowl quirked an eyeridge. “Really. My optics sparkled,” he stated, disbelief colouring his tone but a smile on his lips. “Have you been getting into Orion’s poetry books?”

“They did sparkle,” Jazz whispered, leaning forward again and kissing his way across Prowl’s collar fairing. “I think I took more pics of you lookin’ at the fall than I did of the fall itself. I wanted to remember that moment forever, ya looked so gorgeous.”

Gasping quietly when Jazz finished his admission with a nibble on one of his neck cables, Prowl grabbed at Jazz’s wrists. “Jazz, please. Bluestreak and Hound will hear again.” He bit down on a groan as Jazz sucked gently on the cable he’d just bitten. “It... It is indecent,” he hissed.

“S’what,” Jazz murmured, redoubling his efforts and dragging this dentae up to Prowl’s audial. He grinned when he heard Prowl’s fans catch. “I want’cha, and I don’t care who hears.” He slid a hand across the interface port at Prowl’s hip, digging a digit into the seams surrounding it.

Prowl’s engine rumbled quietly, and Jazz grinned when he felt the Praxian’s field finally relax to allow his lust to flow into it freely. “Fine,” he whispered. He released Jazz’s wrists and laid a digit across his lips. “But let’s see how quiet you can be.”

But it turned out that Prowl was the one who was incapable of being quiet that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the beginning of the chapter, Bluestreak mentioned how he and Hound - err, "indulged" in a little interfacing after hearing Prowl and Jazz going at it. I wrote that bit as a standalone story called [Stargazing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13883838) if you're interesting in reading about it. :)
> 
> And yes, I spent an evening filking bits of songs for this story. If you're interested in the tunes: 
> 
> The first song is to the tune of [The Last Saskatchewan Pirate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuGGNsE3_8Y) by the Arrogant Worms. The last song is the to the tune of [Bugger Off](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrXP5zoFxss) by the Dubliners (err, some NSFW lyrics in that one.) 
> 
> The song in the middle is from [Drunken Sailor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGyPuey-1Jw) by the Irish Rovers. I actually filked the whole thing and [stuck it on DW](https://pipermca.dreamwidth.org/1879.html) if you want to know how I spent my evening...
> 
> And no, not all of the chapters will end with "And then they fragged." It was just these two and it's funny it worked out that way. >.>


	3. Separated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The camping trip apparently does have a bit of peril, after all...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this a day early because I'll need to start running around doing packing and stuff. I'll be subject to the vagaries of hotel wifi for the next few weeks, but I'm still hopeful that I can post the other chapters mostly on time. :)

As they drank their morning energon, Bluestreak looked at Jazz and Prowl with a serious expression. “Today we’re going to be heading into the canyons, so let’s talk safety.”

Prowl nodded approvingly. “I was going to ask you to do so, if you had not brought it up yourself.”

“It’s nothing too serious, just some things to keep in mind when we’re out there. The canyons are a little unpredictable, and shift constantly. Some of them are shallow and are pretty easy to climb out of, while other ones are so deep that no one knows how far down they go,” Bluestreak said.

“When I was plannin’ this trip, I watched some vids of them opening and closing,” Jazz said. “It looks like it happens really fast.”

Bluestreak nodded. “It can, under certain circumstances. Usually they don’t move that fast, but it’s best to keep your optics open and your wits about you. Fortunately, the chasms are pretty easy to spot even before they open. Just look for a ridge of dirt and rocks that have been shoved up like this.” He held his hands flat, side by side, and then pressed them together, tilting them upwards where they met. “If you see that, that’s a sure sign that there’s a chasm underneath, so stay away from those ridges.

“There are a few areas that are just riddled with chasms, but there are safe paths through. We can lead you through those areas; we do it all the time and haven’t lost any mech yet,” Bluestreak continued with a smile. “But to be safe, if you feel the ground shaking under your pedes or wheels, stop moving and make sure you’re not standing on a ridge. Then wait for the shaking to stop. You’ll be fine.”

Prowl frowned. “This sounds unwise. Would it not be best to stay out of areas that have many chasms?”

Hound shook his helm. “Not if you want to see the wildlife. The mechanimals have figured out that it’s harder for predators to get them if they’re deep in the canyon range, so that’s where they stay. I mean, if you want to have come all this way and not see a herd of machadrons up close...”

Prowl’s door wings shot up in interest. “Machadrons? I thought they were almost extinct.”

“They are,” said Hound with a grin. “There are only three known herds left, and two of them live on the Howling Plains, smack in the middle of the canyons. If the wind is right, we’ll be able to get within half a kilometer of them.”

Jazz grinned as he watched Prowl’s door wings quiver. He knew Prowl was hooked. 

Finally Prowl seemed to come to a decision. He nodded and said, “Well, then. What are we waiting for?”

They drove across rolling hills of silver grass. After about a groon of driving, the terrain levelled out and the grass became sparse. Bluestreak signaled for a stop near a small ravine, and all four mechs transformed back into root mode. “This is the start of one of the canyons. It’s one of more stable ones; it rarely moves at all.”

They hiked along the edge of the ravine, and Prowl and Jazz marvelled at how it deepened and widened as they walked. At one point, Prowl estimated that the canyon was a good two-hundred meters wide.

“It’s actually three-hundred meters wide here,” Bluestreak said. “Don’t get too close to the edge, Jazz. It’s stable, but the edges sometimes get a little crumbly.”

Jazz skipped backwards away from the edge where he had been peering downward. “It’s so deep!” he exclaimed.

Hound laughed. “Let’s go a little further, and you’ll get an idea how deep it can go.”

They walked on, and Jazz soon realized what Hound meant. The canyon had widened to a huge distance, and the bottom was completely lost in shadows. The ground thrummed beneath their pedes, and Prowl backed further away from the edge nervously. “Does that mean it is about to...?”

Hound laughed. “No, that’s the wind. In really deep canyons like this one, it actually blows through part of the substructure of the planet. Listen.” The thrumming resolved into a deep bass hum. It reminded Jazz of the speakers at Mirage’s club when there was a problem with the ground wire. As the wind picked up, the deep hum was joined by a ghostly wail that rose from the depths in front of them.

Relaxing, Prowl flicked his door wings and looked at the other Praxian. “There is your ‘ghost,’ Bluestreak,” he said. “A very ghostly puff of air.”

“Ok, ok, you got me, Prowl,” Bluestreak chuckled. 

Hound had been tilting his helm upwards, sniffing and peering into the distance at irregular intervals. He turned to the group and said, “I’ve got an idea of where the machadrons are,” he said. He gestured across the wide canyon. “They’re in the Maze,” he told Bluestreak.

“The Maze?” Prowl asked, his door wings betraying his unease.

Bluestreak waved his hand. “It’s just a set of chasms that are set closer together than in other places. The herds really like those places because it’s so difficult for predators to get to them. But we know our way in and out. Come on, let’s go before they move too far.” He transformed and began driving along the edge of the canyon.

* * *

It took until mid-day to drive to the end of the wide chasm, skirting around its far tip before driving back the way they’d come, only on the other side. Bluestreak slowed and commed the group. ::Ok, we’re going to go into the Maze now. Some of the chasms will be open, and others are closed, but they’re all pretty close together here. Just stay right behind the mech in front of you. I’ll lead us on the safe path, so you just need to go exactly where I do.::

Prowl did his best to stay as close to Jazz’s rear bumper as he could. He didn’t think they were too close to the ridges that indicated a hidden chasm, but he did not want to take any chances. 

After a short while, Jazz sent him a message on a private channel. ::If I didn’t know better, Prowler, I’d think you were trying to climb up my aft.:: Prowl did not respond, so Jazz continued, tagging his message with a glyph of comfort. ::Blue’s not gonna let anything happen to us. It’ll be fine.::

Prowl sent back a glyph indicating trust, but he did not back off of Jazz’s bumper.

Finally Bluestreak slowed and transformed back into root mode, rolling into a crouch and gesturing for the others to do the same. “We’ve got some room to spread out here,” he said quietly. He pointed at a set of ridges surrounding them, and the chasm that they’d followed along to get into the area. “Stay away from those and you’ll be fine.”

“Stay low and don’t move much,” Hound said softly. “They focus on movement like the nosorons do.”

Prowl looked around, trying to locate the mechanimals Hound had been tracking. All he saw around them were ridges, rocks, and dirt. “I do not see them,” he said.

Hound put his hand on Prowl’s shoulder and pointed. He couldn’t see anything except a large pile of rocks a short distance across the plains, just on the other side of the web of ridges Bluestreak had pointed out. Prowl was about to ask again when one of the boulders moved. It took every bit of control he had not to lift his door wings in surprise. 

Jazz voiced what Prowl had only thought. “They look like rocks!” he squeaked quietly.

“Only from a distance,” said Hound. “Enhance your vision a bit and take a closer look.”

Prowl did so, and realized that the uneven surface of the ‘boulders’ was simply a very clever camouflage. The machadrons had rounded, squat frames, and they waddled on stumpy legs that kept them close to the ground. Long tentacles snaked out from their heads to pluck crystals from the ground and bring them up to their large, tusked mouths.

“I never thought I would ever see one in person,” Prowl whispered, incapable of hiding the awe in his voice. “For many vorn, we thought they were driven to extinction during the war. I remember when the first herd was rediscovered. Everyone thought that it was a hoax at first, since it had been so long since anyone had seen one.”

Hound nodded, and Prowl could sense the pride and contentment in his field. “This is that very herd, the first one rediscovered. We and the other guides have been tracking them for vorn... Keeping an optic on them. They’ve been doing really well.”

“I don’t see Bamf anywhere,” said Bluestreak, peering fixedly at the herd and then scanning the terrain around it. He turned to Hound with a look of concern, his optics refocusing on the green mech. “I hope nothing happened to him.”

“Who’s Bamf?” asked Jazz.

“He’s the alpha of the herd. He protects them from predators, keeps them together, collects strays and brings them back to the herd, and he’ll guide them all to a new area once they’ve grazed this one down.” Hound’s face took on the same concerned expression that Bluestreak’s had. 

“That is an odd designation for a machadron,” commented Prowl.

Bluestreak finally smiled. “It stands for Big And Mean Fragger. Trust me, he’s earned it. We’ve seen him go head-to-head with a full pride of pneuma-lions and win.”

They watched the herd in silence for a few kliks. Prowl watched in delight as he saw some of the larger members obviously selecting choice crystals and giving them to the smaller machadron in their midst.

Prowl was about to comment on this when he felt Hound abruptly tense up next to him. The four-by-four’s field flared with alarm. “Blue...” Hound muttered as he turned his helm to look behind him, but that was all he got out before Prowl’s audials were assaulted by a blaring roar.

Prowl whirled around to see a huge machadron stamping towards them on its short legs. But ‘short’ was relative; the machadron’s legs were each almost as tall as Prowl. The mechanimal lifted its tentacle and bellowed again, its red optic band flashing in fury.

Long-disused battle protocols onlined, and Prowl tensed for a fight. He glanced behind him at Jazz, who was crouched awkwardly next to Bluestreak. The red and silver mech opened the comm line and gave curt instructions. ::Don’t make a sound. Don’t move a micrometer unless he charges us and you have to move.:: 

Before conscious thought caught up, Prowl flicked a door wing in acknowledgment.

With another roar, the machadron transformed into its tank mode and charged.

The machadron moved far faster in its tank mode than in his beast mode, and Prowl flung himself to the side just in time to avoid being bashed by the enraged beast. He rolled to his pedes, watching the beast skid into a turn and focus on him again.

::He’s goin’ after Prowl again! Shoot him! Shoot him!:: Prowl heard Jazz’s panic, even over the comm line.

::I don’t have ammo that can take down an alpha. Shield your optics, Prowl.:: Prowl recognized the cold, businesslike timbre of Bluestreak’s battle protocols from the war, and he offlined his optics, trusting the former sniper. 

A loud bang seared his audials. ::Prowl, move!:: At Bluestreak’s command, Prowl onlined his optics in time to see the machadron charge towards him again. 

::That did not appear to slow him down at all.:: Prowl tried to keep his tone steady as he jumped and rolled out of the way of the beast again. The ground shook alarmingly beneath him as the beast hurtled past him. ::Fortunately, he does not seem to be very agile.::

::That was just one of my flashbangs. I’d hoped to spook him, but he’s too mad. I’ll try again.:: Prowl saw Bluestreak reloading his weapon as he moved to a better position. 

Suddenly, Prowl gaped as a second huge machadron materialized next to him in beast mode. It stamped the ground and its visor flashed, a clear challenge to the tank that was wheeling around to face Prowl again. 

The first machadron bellowed and tore over the ground towards Prowl, completely ignoring the second beast. Prowl lunged sideways, stumbling and falling out of the way just in time to avoid being run over. He looked up and saw the second machadron flicker and then vanish again.

Hound cut into the comm line as the second machadron disappeared. ::His targeting systems are locked on Prowl. He didn’t even look at the hologram. We need to distract him somehow so he forgets about Prowl and heads back towards his herd.:: 

Even as the machadron bellowed and focused on him for a fourth time, Prowl’s lines froze when he heard Jazz shout, “Hey! Big and ugly! Over here!” A rock bounced off the machadron’s plating.

::Jazz! What are you doing??:: Prowl watched the beast turn its head and focus on the lithe racer.

“I’m distractin’ him! Hey! You!” Jazz jumped up and down and threw another rock at the beast. “Get your ugly fragging aft away from my Prowler!” When he saw that he had the beast’s undivided attention, he whooped loudly and transformed, throwing himself into reverse.

“Jazz, no!” Hound shouted. “The ridge!”

At some point, one of the ridges had shifted, and the chasm it hid had opened. A great tear in the ground now yawned open behind Jazz...

...who was driving right towards it. 

Backwards.

“Jazz!” yelled Prowl, taking a step forward, but his tac-net coolly informed him that he would never reach Jazz in time. “Stop!”

Bluestreak was closer, and was already in his alt-mode, chasing after Jazz. 

As Jazz’s rear wheels slipped off the edge of the chasm, Bluestreak transformed, throwing himself through the air and hooking his hands under Jazz’s front bumper. He planted his pedes in the dirt, hauling on Jazz’s bumper as he slipped further over the side of the chasm, trying to slow Jazz’s fall. 

It was not enough. Jazz and Bluestreak vanished over the edge of the chasm. 

“Jazz!” Prowl screamed as the pair plunged from sight.

The machadron skidded to a halt just before following them over the cliff, and it turned to face Prowl again.

Prowl grunted as something hit him from behind. He struggled for a moment before Hound slapped a hand over his mouth. ::Quiet. Don’t move.::

::Jazz...: Prowl’s spark reeled, still not believing what he had just witnessed.

::And Blue. I know. Now, don’t move. And **be quiet**.:: Hound’s tone commanded an authority that Prowl did not remember ever hearing from him before.

Forcing his frame to go limp, Prowl stared at Hound. The green mech’s optics were focused on Prowl, but there was an odd far-away look to his expression. Behind the green mech, above them, he saw... brown. Nothing. Another hologram, he realized. The ground shuddered again under his frame, and he tensed. Prowl heard the machadron roll up to where he and Hound lay, and heard it transform. There was a snuffling noise and a snort. 

Prowl pulled his field in as tight as he could, willing the beast to lose interest. After a klik, the snuffling stopped, and he heard another transformation sequence. The rumble of the beast’s engine faded into the distance as he drove away.

The camouflage that Hound had thrown up around them vanished. “Ok, you can get up. He’s gone,” Hound said, rolling off of Prowl’s back. “And sorry if I pinned your door wing awkwardly. But...”

“Jazz!” Prowl sprang to his pedes and ran to where he thought Jazz and Bluestreak had vanished. ::Jazz! Answer me!:: Getting no response to his comm, Prowl spun in a circle, confused. The gaping maw in the ground was... gone. He looked wildly at Hound. “Where...?”

With an anxious expression, Hound pointed at a closed ridge. “There. That’s where they went. But…”

 _No!_ Prowl ran forward and fell to his knees next to the ridge. He began digging his digits into the dirt, scrabbling away handfuls of soil. Maybe he could dig them out. Maybe they weren’t too deep. Maybe they were fine. Maybe... “He can’t... They can’t...”

“Hey, hey,” Hound said, pulling Prowl back from the ridge. “We don’t need you falling in too, if it opens again.”

“I can’t,” said Prowl, staring at Hound. “I… I can’t…” 

He had just gotten Jazz back. He’d lost him before, but he’d gotten him back. Jazz was gone. He’d lost him again. He’s just gotten Jazz back after losing him. But he’d lost him again. He – 

Someone was shaking him. Hound. The green mech peered at Prowl, his field shot with concern and anxiety. “Prowl. Don’t you crash on me. I need you here. I’m going to need your help.” He waited until Prowl’s optics focused on him. “Are you with me?”

“Yes.” He nodded, recognizing the circular loop that Hound had broken him out of. “Yes, I am.” Combating the desire to slouch in distress, he straightened and spread his door wings attentively. He suppressed the fear and sorrow that rose to encircle his spark. He silently acknowledged that a thousand vorn of practice after Jazz had disappeared made doing that easier than was probably healthy. “What can we do? Why aren’t they answering comms?” He glanced again at the closed ridge, picturing Jazz’s frame crushed between layers of rock and metal. “Are they…”

Satisfied that Prowl was not about to fall apart on him, Hound let go of his shoulders and stood up. “That chasm’s a pretty deep one, so they wouldn’t have been crushed when it closed. Just the surface moves for ones like those. And the area around here is riddled with ore deposits that prevent anything other than short-range comms.” He exvented, and Prowl felt the mech’s worry in his field. “It’s... well, it’s about a kilometer deep here, but the sides are slanted so they only would have free-fallen a few hundred meters. They’ve both jumped or fallen that far before, so hopefully they landed all right.” Hound’s voice did not sound as certain as his words implied, however.

Stilling his door wings with a conscious effort, Prowl asked, “How can we get them out?”

Hound frowned. “Well, we can’t get them out. Not through there, anyway. But!” he held up a hand to forestall Prowl’s dismayed exclamation. “All these deep chasms are part of an underground network that runs the length of the plains, and they all connect up with a cave system on the far eastern edge. Blue will head that way, since he knows that would be the best way out.”

“How far to the cave entrance?” Prowl asked.

Grimacing, Hound said, “It’ll be about a two- or three-cycle drive.”

“That long.” Prowl could not keep up his façade for any longer, and his wings fell. “This is my fault. If I had not moved…”

“Hey! Knock that off.” Hound patted Prowl on the shoulder awkwardly, the commanding tone he’d used before now missing. “We’ll go get them. Blue knows this place as well as I do, and they’re both big mechs that are more than capable of taking care of themselves. So long as Blue’s ok, he and Jazz will have no problem meeting us at the caves.” He waited until Prowl nodded at him before setting off. “Let’s get going.”

* * *

The first thing that Jazz noticed, after the pain in his knee, was that Bluestreak was not ok.

Jazz had transformed into root mode as he fell, twisting and flipping in the air acrobatically. He had landed on the talus slope at bottom of the chasm with a roll, managing to escape the fall with scratches, a few minor dents, and a wrenched knee. 

Bluestreak, on the other hand, was off-balance when they slipped over the edge, and wasn’t able to recover to land as gracefully as Jazz. Using his headlights to illuminate the other mech, Jazz frowned as he catalogued Bluestreak’s injuries. From the looks of him, Jazz figured he had bounced off the chasm’s wall a few times on the way down. His right optic was shattered, the right side of his chevron was missing, and he was sporting a serious-looking dent just above his right audial. His right door wing was dislocated, hanging uselessly, and his right arm was limp. Sparks sputtered irregularly from his right shoulder.

Bluestreak lay face-down on the floor of the cavern, and tilted his helm slowly to look at Jazz with this remaining optic. Jazz ghosted his digits over the damage to Bluestreak’s shoulder, and he hissed sympathetically when he saw the damage to the door wing’s hinges. “Wow, Blue, did ya get the serial number of the transport that hit ya?” Jazz asked as soon as he was certain that the Praxian was still online. 

Static spat out of Bluestreak’s vocalizer, and he shook his helm slightly. 

“Do yer comms work?” Jazz asked.

After a moment, Bluestreak shook his helm. “Syst- …verrrrr _*fzzt*_... - maged. Re-re-re-rebooooo _*fzzt*_... bratio – ed-d-d-d…” His vocalizer stuttered fragments of words through the static, and Jazz tried to parse what he was trying to say. Bluestreak looked up at Jazz with his remaining optic, then suddenly squeezed it shut in pain when he tried to move his dislocated door wing.

“Aww, Blue, take it easy. Yer just spittin’ out garbage.” Jazz put his hand on the uninjured side of Bluestreak’s back and rubbed gently. “Yer wing’s dislocated. It’s gonna need to be reset.” Bluestreak nodded. Jazz thought that was a good sign; even if Bluestreak couldn’t speak, he could at least understand what Jazz said. “And… were ya trying to say that you were gonna try a reboot?” He smiled when Bluestreak nodded again. “A’ight. Go ahead and reboot, and I’ll try to reset your door wing while you’re offline.”

Bluestreak nodded again, then lowered his helm back to the ground. After a moment, his remaining optic went dark as he initiated a reboot.

Grasping the dislocated door wing with both hands, Jazz braced a knee in the center of the Praxian’s back and tugged on the appendage until he heard it fall back into place. He grimaced at the sickening grinding noise that it made when he gently moved it. He kept it supported until he heard Bluestreak’s ventilation system return to normal as he came back online.

Jazz kept a hand on the injured wing and bent down to look into Bluestreak’s face. “How ya doin’, Blue? I got yer wing back into place, but I’m pretty sure something in the hinge is fragged up.”

“Thanks, J-J-Jazz.” Bluestreak’s vocalizer was still staticky, but understandable. He sat up, groaning, and flinched when he tried to move the wing. It made another grinding noise. “Yeah, the w-w-wing is fragged up, b-b-but thanks for resetting it. I’ll j-j-just be caaaaaaa _*fzzt*_... careful not to move it.” He put a hand to his helm and carefully felt around the edges of the dent. “What the fraaaaaa _*fzzt*_... frag is up-p-p with m-my voc-c-c-calizer?” Bluestreak asked, looking up at Jazz, his remaining optic wide with apprehension.

“I’m guessin’ ya knocked somethin’ loose. That’s a big dent ya got there,” Jazz said. “How about your shoulder?” he asked, eyeing the sparks with concern.

Bluestreak turned his helm as far as he could and tried to see his injured shoulder with his remaining optic. “Um, wow. That’s p-p-probably bad-d. I can’t even feel it. I c-c-can’t move it either.” He lifted his limp arm with his other hand and let it fall, then hissed. “Aaah! Ok, I felt that-t-t. Mental n-n-note, d-d-don’t do that again.” He gently tipped his helm from one side to the other, and added, “W-w-walking is going to be har-d-d. I’m n-not getting any sennnn... _*fzzt*_ sensor data on m-m-my right side at all.”

“I’m just glad you’re online.” Jazz sat down next to Bluestreak with a thump and looked around. “I’m really sorry, Blue. If I’d been watchin’ where I was goin’, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt like that. And we wouldn’t be stuck.” He looked up but saw only darkness past the light from their headlights.

“We’re n-n-not stuck! These c-c-caverns all join up, and there’s a caaaaaa... _*fzzt*_ cave system east of here that’ll j-j-just let us walk right out-t-t. Hound knows where it-t is, so him and P-P-Prowl are probably heading there already. We j-j-just need to head that waaaaaay _*fzzt*_ , and it’ll eventually g-g-get us out of here.” Bluestreak turned his helm back and forth, and then frowned. “Um, I think m-my compass and GPS are offline, though. Which w-w-way is east?”

“Um... That way.” Jazz pointed at the wall right behind them.

“Well, I g-g-guess it doesn’t matter which w-w-way we start off in, then. Once we f-find an intersection with another c-c-cavern I should be able to f-figure out where we are.” Bluestreak began to shrug, then hissed again as he moved his injured door wing. “Fraaaaa... _*fzzt*_ ” His voice dissolved into static and noise as he doubled over. 

“Do ya have a med kit? Something with some pain blockers or something?” Jazz asked, hovering at Bluestreak’s side uncertainly.

Bluestreak slowly looked up at Jazz. His lone optic flickered as he reset his vocalizer. “Yeah, b-b-but it’s only got t-two blockers. I think-k I’m gonna want to save them for b-before I recharrrrrr... _*fzzt*_ recharge to make sure I c-can rest.” He watched Jazz climb to his pedes and frowned. “Are y-y-you all right? D-d-did you hurt yourself at all? You’re f-favouring your left leg-g. D-do you need me to save you one of the blockers?”

“No. It’s just my knee. It’ll be ok – you’re way more hurt than I am.”

“All r-right.” Bluestreak glanced around, squinting into the darkness. “And hey... D-d-do you see my rifle anywhere? I hope it f-fell down here with me, otherrrrrr... _*fzzt*_ otherwise we’re unarmed. N-n-not that I think there’s anything d-down here that c-c-could hurt us. I think. These c-c-caverns haven't really b-been mapped... And who knows what-t might b-be living down here that hasn’t been d-d-discovered.” Bluestreak began opening his compartments. “And we should innnnnn... _*fzzt*_ inventory what g-g-gear we’ve got with us. I have a feeling we’re g-g-going to be running short on fuel by the t-time we g-get out of here.”

“Good idea.” Jazz emptied his compartments onto the ground next to Bluestreak, then said, “I’ll go look for your rifle.”

Bluestreak listed off the items the two mechs had between them as Jazz hunted the ground around them for Bluestreak’s weapon: two ration packs, the med kit, a small lantern, a length of rope, a datapad that Jazz had been jotting song ideas onto, ammunition for Bluestreak’s rifle, another flashbang, and a vibroflute. “T-two ration p-p-packs isn’t a lot,” Bluestreak said grimly. “We’ll n-need to w-watch our fuel levels pretty c-closely.”

“I, uh, found your rifle,” Jazz called from several meters away. He came back into the glow of Bluestreak’s headlights and held out the rifle with a gloomy expression on his face plates. The barrel of the rifle had a distinct bend to it.

“Ouch,” said Bluestreak, taking the rifle. “That’s n-n-not good.” He sighted down the barrel and then exvented. “W-well, we’ll t-t-take it with us anyway. We c-c-can still use it as a stick-k or something.”

They stowed their gear, and Jazz tied the rope around Bluestreak’s injured shoulder and arm to create a makeshift sling. “That sling should keep your arm from swingin’ around.” Jazz helped the red and silver mech to his pedes and slung Bluestreak’s rifle over his shoulder. He looked at Bluestreak appraisingly. “Are you sure you’re ok to move?”

“A-a-aside from this slagged g-g-litch with my vocallll... _*fzzt*_ vocalizer, I’ll be fine, at least for n-now. We d-don’t have much of a choice, d-do we?” Bluestreak said cheerily, but Jazz saw the quick grimace of pain that flashed across his face as he turned to begin walking. He weaved slightly as if trying to find his balance. “B-b-besides, Hound and P-p-prowl are probably worried sick-k. The sooner we g-get out of here, the sooner they c-can stop-p worrying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mental note: I am never, ever, ever, ever writing anything ever again in which I give Bluestreak (!) a speech impediment. o.O (What was I thinking?!)
> 
> (I tried to make Bluestreak sound sort of like Max Headroom, but with more static.)


	4. Phantoms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl and Hound race to the cave entrances, while Jazz and Bluestreak try to make their way there as well. But they might not be alone...

Prowl had to admit that Hound was right. As much as his spark insisted that they start driving towards the caves as fast as possible, Hound was absolutely right. It made logical sense to return to their campsite first, pack their gear and load it into the trailer.

“If either of them are hurt, it’ll be a big help to have the trailer with us. Besides, they’re probably going to be low on fuel by the time we find them... And so would we if we didn’t come back for our stuff,” Hound said as he loaded the second tent into the trailer.

“And the tents?” Prowl asked, securing the last of the gear in the trailer. His tac-net was tenaciously tracking how much time they were losing, but it also agreed with Hound. This was a good plan. 

“We’re not supposed to get any storms for a while, but...” Hound shrugged. “Like we just found out, sometimes things are unpredictable.”

As they drove, Prowl peppered Hound with questions about the chasm that Jazz and Bluestreak had fallen into, the surrounding terrain, the ease at navigating the caverns, and anything else he could think of about the situation. Hound did not have answers to some of his questions, but he provided what information he could. Prowl fed the data into his tac-net and watched it chew through statistics and probabilities regarding his main questions: how likely Jazz and Bluestreak were to be uninjured, how quickly both groups might reach the cave entrance, and the probability that this situation would resolve itself satisfactorily.

He did not like any of the conclusions his tac-net reached.

They drove until darkness fell. Prowl pushed to keep going, but Hound insisted on stopping. “We could drive right into a crevasse, or run across some unfriendly wildlife in the dark. It’s better to wait until morning.” 

They agreed that one tent would do. Neither of them wanted to spend energy setting up two separate tents, and Prowl doubted that he would be able to get much recharge anyway. After the tent was set up, they sat down by the power generator to drink their evening fuel. 

After listening to Bluestreak’s chatter for three cycles, Hound’s silence was a little jarring. Prowl looked over at the green mech, who was slumped back against the trailer’s wheel, staring at the sky. 

“I am sorry. About Bluestreak.” Hound jumped when Prowl spoke. “I know you are as worried for him as I am for Jazz.” Prowl canted his door wings downwards. “And... I am worried for both of them, not just Jazz.”

Hound smiled at him. “I know. It’s ok. We’ve both got a right to be worried.” He looked back towards the sky and snorted a laugh. “Blue was telling the truth when he said we’ve never lost anyone... Until today. We’ve been out here – slag, hundreds and hundreds of times now. We’ve guided the most obstinate, oblivious mechs you’ve ever met through these canyons. Mechs that wouldn’t listen to a thing we said. Mechs that would do things like pose next to a machadron calf while its originator was glaring at them, just so someone could take an image capture of them. No one’s ever fallen in... Until Jazz.” He looked back at Prowl with a sad smile. “I remember what he was like, back on Earth. We should have known to keep a closer optic on him.”

Prowl flicked a door wing at Hound in agreement. “Do you remember when he accidentally started an avalanche in the Rocky Mountains on Earth because he was playing his music too loud?”

Hound laughed. “We had to spend a whole two cycles clearing the highway, and Optimus spent another deca-cycle convincing the human government that it hadn’t been some Cybertronian weapon that had brought down all that snow.” 

“After that incident, Optimus Prime told me I should have kept a tighter rein on him,” Prowl said, shaking his helm, remembering the incident. “I told Prime that if he wanted me to keep control of the third in command, he should have promoted someone who actually listened to orders.”

Hound grinned. “So, did you know that he ignored your orders, and kept driving around in the mountains blaring his music, even after the avalanche? He said that the acoustics were too amazing to pass up.”

With a small smile, Prowl nodded. “Yes. I knew. I chose to ignore it.”

Hound laughed and then went quiet. Finally, he said, “Prowl... This wasn’t your fault, and it wasn’t Jazz’s. We’re the guides, me and Blue. It’s our job to keep watch, and I didn’t see or smell Bamf until he was right on top of us. I should have been keeping a closer watch. I’m sorry.”

“It does not matter whose fault it is,” Prowl said. “What matters is finding them.”

Hound nodded, then rose and stretched. “I’m gonna get some rest. Make sure you try to get some too, ok?”

Prowl nodded. “I will. Good recharge, Hound.”

Alone by the power generator, Prowl stared into its glow, trying not to replay the image of Jazz and Bluestreak falling from sight over the edge of the cliff.

A ghostly wail rose from the ground around him, drifting through the cold night air.

Prowl stiffened. Unbidden, the image from Bluestreak’s story came to mind: a set of tire tracks, vanishing into a crevasse. But this time, Prowl imagined the tracks were marked with Jazz’s tread pattern.

* * *

Jazz quickly figured out that Bluestreak’s chatter was a good indicator of how the mech was doing, even glitched as it was. So long as Bluestreak kept up a steady patter of words, he was doing fine. When his speech slowed, became too jumbled to understand or – worst of all – stopped, Jazz would call a halt and make Bluestreak rest.

This mandatory rest period came about because the first time Bluestreak stopped talking, Jazz had not caught it. Instead, Jazz just kept walking until Bluestreak fell face-first to the ground. His legs and pedes moved back and forth as if he thought he was still upright and walking.

“Blue!” Jazz dashed back and rolled Bluestreak onto his side. The Praxian’s one working optic flickered, and his mouth opened and closed silently in an imitation of speech. Jazz felt for his field, and found it – alarmingly still and silent. 

Jazz shook Bluestreak’s shoulders. “Hey! Blue! Come back, mech.” He patted Bluestreak’s cheek, trying to draw his gaze, but Bluestreak’s optic continued flickering, unfocused.

“Slag...” Jazz unspooled his data cable from his wrist and slid Bluestreak’s medical port open. He plugged his cable into the port at Bluestreak’s neck, and initiated the handshake protocols to access his automatic processor functions. “Yer lucky I remember my field combat first aid, Blue,” Jazz murmured, sending as much comfort through the connection as he could. He didn’t know if Bluestreak could feel it, but he figured it would not hurt.

After a klik he found what he was looking for, and triggered a reboot of Bluestreak’s processor. The Praxian’s optic went dark and his frame fell limp in Jazz’s arms.

A long klik passed in which nothing happened. A reboot usually only took a klik... Maybe two.

Jazz’s chronometer counted two kliks... Three... Four... 

Bluestreak continued to lay motionless, silent and dark. Jazz shifted his grip on the gunner’s frame as he felt to make sure his hardline was still connected to the other mech’s port. He cautiously felt down the line for any signs, but the entity on the other end of the connection was simply blank.

“Come on, Blue,” Jazz murmured, a sense of dread starting to creep over him. “Don’t you leave me down here. I need ya to get me to the surface. Hound needs ya, too.”

Finally, Jazz heard a soft hum, and felt the connection come back alive through the hardline. Jazz heaved a vent of relief.

As Bluestreak’s internal systems hummed back to life, his optic flickered on. His helm tilted slightly to look up at Jazz. “D-d-d-did I t-t-t-trip?” he stuttered, his vocalizer thick with static. 

Jazz sent a gentle trickle of [[ _comfort/calm_ ]] through the connection before disengaging and unplugging himself. “No. Ya seized up and crashed. I had to force a reboot to get you back.” Jazz decided not to tell Bluestreak how long it took him to come back out of the reboot. Jazz shifted his grip to allow Bluestreak to sit up. “How are you feeling now?”

“All right. T-tired. My shoulder and wing are k-k-killing me.” The static had gradually cleared, but his stutter remained. Bluestreak shook his helm. “I’m g-getting all kinds of error-or-or-or messages, but they’re gradually clearing up.” 

“Tell me if ya get any new ones, ok?” Jazz helped Bluestreak back to his pedes and adjusted the sling. Frowning at how badly Bluestreak was listing to one side, Jazz gently pushed the Praxian back upright again. “And we’re gonna stop for a rest if you look tired, or if I think you need a break, a’ight?” 

It was during one of these breaks that Bluestreak stared dully into the distance. Jazz had measured out a ration of energon and was trying to press it into Bluestreak’s hand when the other mech said, “I think I’m starting t-t-to hallucinate. That’s p-p-probably not good.”

“Hallucinate?” Jazz looked in the direction that Bluestreak was staring, and failed to see anything unusual. Outside the light from their headlights, Jazz could see nothing but darkness. He looked back at Bluestreak, his mouth twisted in concern. “What are ya seeing?”

“Nothing strange right n-now,” Bluestreak said. He drank his ration in one gulp, then peered into the cube to see if he’d missed any. “But when we were w-walking, every so often, in the d-distance, I thought I saw sommm... _*fzzt*_ something moving. It looked like it was... glowing?” He shook his helm. “Maybe I fragged up my other optic, too.” 

Jazz hummed. “I haven’t seen anything, glowing or not, but I’ve been more focused on not puttin’ my pede wrong and messing up my other knee.” He peered at Bluestreak. “Are ya getting’ any new error messages? Your speech seems a bit better.”

“No, nothing new,” Bluestreak said. “What’s new is that g-g-glowing thing.” 

Frowning, Jazz said, “Let me know if you see it again, and I’ll take a look. If I see it, you’re not hallucinating.”

“And if you don’t see it, tell Hound that I need to have my p-processor looked at,” Bluestreak finished, grinning weakly. 

Jazz grimaced at Bluestreak. “I think yer gonna need to get your processor looked at, one way or another. I’m pretty sure that dent in yer helm did somethin’ to your speech centre.” He bent closer to take a look at the dent. Bluestreak’s self-repair had not seemed to have made any progress on it. However, he was glad to see that Bluestreak’s shoulder had stopped sparking, now that it was immobilized as much as possible. “What’re your fuel and energy levels at?” 

“Fuel level’s at 54%. Energy’s at 32%.” Bluestreak grimaced. “It’s past m-m-midnight, right? Maybe we should just rest here for the night.”

“That’s probably a good idea.” Jazz looked around the darkened cavern, and felt a curl of apprehension. “Uh, I think we should recharge in shifts, just in case there’s something down here with us. Ya know, your glowy friend. I’ll keep first watch.” 

Bluestreak did not argue, but only nodded sleepily. “That works. W-wake me in three groons or so and I’ll take a shift.”

“Deal.”

Bluestreak settled himself against the wall of the cavern and was in recharge within kliks. Jazz watched the other mech for a long moment before turning off his headlights to save energy, and turned on the little lantern instead. 

Leaning his helm against the wall of the cavern, Jazz began singing softly to himself. It was an old ballad that he had performed as a duet with Wavemaster a few orbital cycles ago at Visages. The tune was melancholy, which suited his mood, and it was restful enough that he hoped it wouldn’t disturb Bluestreak.

He had started on the second verse when he heard a noise. Jazz stopped singing and listened carefully. _Probably just some rocks shifting_ , he thought, but did not begin singing again.

When he heard the noise a second time, Jazz quickly flipped off the lantern and offlined his visor to disable its blue glow. In the utter darkness, he stretched his other senses to listen and feel. 

Next to him, he sensed Bluestreak’s internal systems running quietly as he recharged.

He felt the air currents drifting around him, bringing him scents of damp earth and metal.

He heard a shuffling noise, like a pede on loose rocks.

That.

Jazz grabbed the darkened lantern and silently climbed to his pedes, his visor still offline. He carefully felt his way forward, taking one, two, three steps in the direction he’d heard the noise. He stopped and listened again.

There was a subtle crunching noise, like a mech trying to walk quietly on a gravel road.

Jazz turned his helm towards the noise and onlined his visor.

A pale white figure stared back at him in the darkness, a little distance away. A mech, taller than him, a tankformer, with a visor...

“Hey!” Jazz shouted in surprise. He turned the lantern on, thrusting it at the figure.

In the sudden light, the figure vanished.

“Whuzzit?” Bluestreak muttered, coming online and looking around.

Jazz stared where the figure had been for a moment before taking the few steps back to Bluestreak. He crouched down next to the Praxian and said, “Well, Blue, either you’re ok, or we’re both hallucinating.”

* * *

Prowl and Hound drove through the second cycle after Jazz and Bluestreak fell, the kilometers falling behind them quickly. 

Around mid-day, they passed a herd of nosoron in the distance that were arranged in a circle. Hound pointed them out and sent a glyph of regret with his message. ::I wish... I think that’s something Jazz would have liked to see. They’re arranged like that because they sensed a predator hidden in the silver grass. It’s probably a pride of pneuma-lions.::

::Yes. Jazz would have loved to see that.:: Prowl paused on a rise and took a few image captures before hurrying after Hound. He would show them to Jazz when they found him and Bluestreak.

 **When** they found them. 

Not if. 

When the sun dipped behind the mountains again, they stopped for the night. “We should be at the cave entrances before mid-day tomorrow,” Hound said. 

After not recharging well the previous night, Prowl was exhausted. He checked his energy levels and frowned. “I do not suppose that you have a med kit with recharge aids in it, do you?” Prowl asked.

Hound shook his helm. “No, sorry. We usually don’t need those out there.” The green mech slugged back the rest of his energon and frowned. “I had a hard time getting into recharge last night, too.”

Prowl nodded. “I understand.” A companionable silence fell between them again, both mechs lost in their thoughts.

The Praxian suppressed a shiver when the ethereal howl floated out of the canyon they were following. He listened to its tone rise and fall, almost like a singer following a sad melody.

Prowl lifted his door wings as he listened. It reminded him of a song that Jazz had been practicing a few orbital cycles before their vacation. He closed his optics and hummed along quietly. The lyrics were a dreamy meditation on finding love but not having it reciprocated, and Prowl remembered being transfixed when Jazz sang it for him in full. 

Lost in the music drifting around him like smoke, Prowl missed the first notification. Then his tac-net pinged him again. _Compensating for distortion and distance. Probability of sound matching song: 87%._

Prowl’s optics flew open. He looked out across the canyon into the darkness.

Across the gaping chasm, a glowing white figure moved.

“Hound.” Prowl’s quiet voice jarred Hound out of his reverie and he looked at Prowl. “Out there. Something is moving. Something is... glowing.”

Hound turned his helm, then reached out and turned off the power generator. In the darkness, both mechs stared at the figure for a full klik. 

The figure drifted, almost as if rolling. Prowl zoomed his vision in as far as he could, and only resolved the figure into a rounded shape that seemed to change shape as it moved. 

“It looks like a mech. A tankformer.” Hound’s vision was better than Prowl’s, but he sounded very uncertain. “I think? It might be a machadron, but I should be able to smell it with the wind blowing this way, and I can’t.”

The howl lifted and grew louder, resolving undisputedly into the melody Prowl remembered hearing Jazz sing. They listened to it as the figure moved in the darkness.

After a few kliks, the music faded, and the figure wavered before evaporating into the night.

Hound’s optics gleamed as he turned to Prowl in the dark. “I guess neither of us are gonna recharge well tonight, either,” he said softly.

* * *

When Bluestreak woke him, Jazz thought that the other mech looked even worse than before he’d gotten some recharge. 

“Slag, Blue, you look like you’ve been to the Pit and back. What can I do?” Jazz hovered by him, adjusting the sling.

“I think I’m going to have to take one of those pain b-b-blockers,” Bluestreak said, gritting his dentae when Jazz shifted the sling a bit higher. “I hate the way they make my p-p-processor all fuzzy, but everything hurts. I think there might be a short in one of my shoulder actuators, and it’s feeding back-k-k into my sensor systems. And this fragged vocal g-g-glitch is as baaaa... _*fzzt*_ bad as b-before.”

Jazz produced the med kit and prepared the pain blocker. As he pressed the injector to Bluestreak’s neck, he said, “Not sure if this’ll help your vocal glitch, but it’ll definitely help with your pain.” He rocked back on his heels and looked Bluestreak in his one optic. “Did you want to give me the map, just in case? Err, I promise not to leave you behind! But just in case your pain starts getting worse...” 

Bluestreak grinned lopsidedly up at Jazz. “I-I know you wouldn’t leave me. Or you’d b-better not, anyway.” He frowned in mock seriousness before giving it up. “But I don’t really have a m-m-map to give you, not specifically. It’s more of... a theory of how the c-chasms run up above, and trying to t-t-translate them to down-own-own here. I’m sort of guiding us by intuition, if that makes sense?” He frowned again. “Am I m-making sense? Is the pain blocker getting me all mixed up already?” 

“No, that makes sense. You don’t have a real map, just some guesses of how the caverns must fit together,” Jazz supplied.

“Yes, exactly.” Bluestreak sat for another moment before clambering to his pedes with a groan. “Well, we’d better g-g-get going. I can guess at which way to go all I want, but we won’t know if I’m right unless we start walking-ng.”

“Right.” Jazz made sure they had all of their gear, and slung an arm around Bluestreak’s waist to steady him. “Before we stopped this last time, you were tellin’ me about the huntin’ trip you and Hound took to the Mithril Sea with some Council members.” He grinned. “Spill some of that dirt for me.” 

They walked for another few groons, carefully navigating around fallen rocks and growths of crystals. At one point, the cavern lightened, and they were able to catch a glimpse of the sky. It was an impossible distance above them, mostly obscured by the twisting walls of the canyon. 

“Slag, how far down did we fall?” Jazz asked wonderingly.

Bluestreak leaned against a crystal formation and looked up wearily. “Looks like we’re about a k-k-kilometer down.”

“That far?” Still looking up, Jazz cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled. “Hey! Hello! We’re down here!” His voice echoed, ricocheting back to him several times over the next few moments. 

Bluestreak watched Jazz call several more times with an amused expression on his face. “I don’t think Hound or P-P-Prowl’s going to hear you, if that’s what you’re t-trying to do.”

“I thought it might be worth a shot.” Jazz looked at Bluestreak again, and stepped closer to him. The mech did not look well at all. “Do you need another pain blocker? There’s only the one left...”

Bluestreak shook his helm. “No. I’m just... t-t-tired. The first blocker is still working. My p-p-processor just feels like it’s running through sludge, and not g-getting any data from my right side is making me d-dizzy.” His helm twitched sideways slightly and his optic flickered. “And this g-g-glitch in my speech center is drrrrr... _*fzzt*_ driving me crazy.”

Jazz didn’t like the sound of that. A quiet Bluestreak was a troubled Bluestreak. A Bluestreak that was incapable of speaking... That would be a bigger problem. But Jazz nodded and asked, “Are you ok to keep moving?”

“Yeah,” Bluestreak replied, and pushed himself off the crystal he’d been resting against. 

Jazz put his arm around Bluestreak’s waist again, and the other mech gratefully leaned on him as they started walking.

* * *

It was the fourth time they’d stopped to allow Bluestreak to recharge. “I d-don’t know why I’m so tired,” he groaned as he settled down on the floor of the cavern again.

“I ain’t no medic, but I’m pretty sure your self-repair system is doin’ it’s best to fix yer damage, and eatin’ into your energy,” Jazz said, careful that his field showed only encouragement and understanding, and no sign of the frustration he felt at their slow progress. “It’s all right. Get some recharge. I’ll keep watch over ya.”

So Jazz spent another two groons staring into the dark as Bluestreak recharged beside him. He had started composing lyrics for a song about this little incident, but he could not decide whether he wanted to do something melancholy (which reflected his current mood) or something more humourous to enjoy when they finally got out of this predicament.

 **When** they got out of it.

Not if.

A strangled shout and a buzz of static was all the warning Jazz got before Bluestreak’s arm slammed into his chest.

Leaping to his pedes, Jazz turned on his headlights and whirled to face the Praxian. Bluestreak’s one working optic was wide and unseeing, and he clawed at the air. “Blue!” Jazz yelled, grabbing Bluestreak by the shoulders.

The red and silver mech thrashed in his arms, sounds of wordless terror falling from his vocalizer. He pushed on Jazz’s chest, trying to shove the racer off of him.

“Slag. Blue! It’s me, Jazz!” Jazz held on, falling to his knees and using the weight of his frame to pin Bluestreak’s kicking legs down before one of them could hit him. Bluestreak pitched and screamed underneath him. “It’s all right! You’re safe!”

Bluestreak froze, staring up at Jazz, his one optic full of confusion and fear. Gradually his expression melted from one of terror into shame, his field flaring uncontrollably to match. “Jazz?” he whispered.

Cautiously loosening his grip, Jazz said, “Yeah. It’s me. You’re ok.” He rolled off of Bluestreak and sat next to the gunner on the ground.

Lowering his gaze, Bluestreak slumped back against the wall. “I had a n-n-nightmare, I guess.” He wrapped his arms around his legs, pulling them to his chest and rolling himself into a ball. “I haven’t had one in a long t-time.”

“Yer in a lot of pain, Blue,” Jazz said, laying a hand on Bluestreak’s arm. “It’s totally understandable.” Jazz bit back repeating that he was safe, since that technically wasn’t true.

Bluestreak turned his helm slightly towards Jazz. “After the war ended-ed, I used to have nightmares all the t-time. Hound... He’d hold me until I’d stopped shaking. It’d let me g-g-get back into recharge.” Giving Jazz a sidelong glance, Bluestreak quietly asked, “C-c-can you...?”

“O’ course, Blue.” Jazz wrapped his arms around Bluestreak, careful of his injured shoulder and wing. He waited until Bluestreak relaxed against him, resting his helm on Jazz’s shoulder. “Hound wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t.”

“He w-w-would,” Bluestreak said sleepily, already fading back into recharge. “He’s always b-b-been the better one, of him and m-m-me.”

Jazz chuckled quietly. “I don’t believe that for a klik, Blue,” he said. “Yer both good mechs.” He rested his chin on the top of Bluestreak’s helm. “And we’re all a little broken in our own ways.”

* * *

The groons passed slowly. They left the part of the cavern with the open sky, and were plunged back into darkness. Pedes scraped on gravel, and their headlights cast bobbing shadows ahead of them as they walked.

“Bluestreak,” Jazz said after a long period of silence. “Do you need to stop again?”

“Nah,” replied Bluestreak. He fell silent again, and Jazz frowned. He was about to ask Bluestreak to tell him another story, just to keep him talking, when Bluestreak suddenly said, “D-do you smell that?”

“What?” Jazz sniffed at the air. He couldn’t smell anything other than dirt and metal, the same things they’d been smelling for cycles. 

Bluestreak slowed, lifting his helm in a striking imitation of Hound scenting the wind. “That smell. The air. It’s... frrrr... _*fzzt*_ fresher than it has b-been?” 

Jazz felt a twist of excitement in his spark. “Maybe we’re getting’ close to the cave entrance?” 

“Maybe.” Bluestreak frowned and sniffed again. “And there’s something else. Almost like... It’s m-musty?”

“Like a machadron?” 

“Yeah!” exclaimed Bluestreak. “That’s exactly w-what it smells like. How d-did you know?”

“Because there’s a herd of them over there.” Jazz pointed off to the side. 

The two mechs stopped in their tracks and stared. The cavern forked, and down the leg of the cavern they were not following, they saw a small herd of machadrons. They were just within range of their headlights, but ignored the two mechs as they browsed on the small crystals growing on the sides of the cavern. 

“What... What are machadrons doing down here?” asked Jazz.

“I really d-d-don’t know,” Bluestreak replied. “Maybe they t-t-take shelter in the cave from p-predators?”

_“Who are you?”_

Both mechs jumped at the reedy voice that echoed from behind them. Jazz whirled, staring into the darkness that they had just walked through.

“D-d-did you hear that?” Bluestreak whispered.

Jazz nodded.

 _“Who are you?”_ the quavering voice said again. It seemed to be coming from the tunnel they had just emerged from.

“Who’s there?” Jazz demanded of the darkness.

In the distance, a glowing figure slowly materialized from the gloom. It drifted closer but stopped well out of range of Jazz’s headlights. _“What do you want? Who are you?”_ the voice said.

Jazz pulled Bluestreak’s broken rifle from his shoulder and gripped it in both hands like a sword. He took a step sideways so that he stood between the figure and Bluestreak. “We’re just lost mechs. We’re lookin’ to get outta here.”

“J-jazz, what are you d-doing?” Bluestreak hissed. 

“I’m the one who got ya hurt in the first place. I’m not gonna let this thing do anything to ya,” Jazz whispered back. Lifting the weapon in his hands, Jazz took one step towards the figure. He kept his visor trained on the figure. It drifted closer, still outside the range of his headlights. Jazz was able to make out that it was a mech, probably taller than he was, with a visor. 

Suddenly, the figure vanished.

Jazz whipped his helm around. “Where’d he go?” he asked, trying to keep the frantic edge out of his tone.

“He j-just vanished!” Bluestreak’s field flared with confusion and fear. He took a step back towards the wall of the cavern. “Like... like a gh-ghost!”

Jazz stepped back towards the wall alongside Bluestreak. _Ghosts are not real_ , Prowl had said. Jazz suddenly, intensely wanted Prowl to be standing next to him saying that. “Ghosts aren’t real,” he repeated out loud. “He... he probably just stepped behind a rock or something that we can’t see.” 

Nothing happened for a long klik. They heard the machadrons grunting and chewing in the distance, and each other’s harsh ventilations as both mechs tried to calm down. But as the silence dragged on, Jazz slowly lowered the gun and spared a glance at Bluestreak. “What the frag...” he said.

Before he could finish his thought, a voice echoed out of the darkness. Jazz whirled again and saw a large mech step out of the shadows, striding towards them purposefully. The glowing figure raised an arm and pointed at Jazz and Bluestreak.

_“You shouldn’t be here.”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting from the road, and editing on my laptop is the pits! Sorry for any formatting snafus - I'll fix them when I get a chance.


	5. Visitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl and Hound arrive at the cave entrances.

Prowl and Hound arrived at the cavern entrances just past mid-day on the third cycle. Hound navigated down the steep hill, handling the switchbacks much faster than Prowl felt capable of doing. 

When Prowl reached the bottom of the hill, Hound was standing next to the trailer, looking down the cliff face thoughtfully. He waited until Prowl transformed, then turned to the Praxian. “So, this is where I’m not sure what our best course of action is,” Hound said. “The first problem is that I don’t know what cave entrance they’re going to come out of.”

Prowl looked down the valley they had driven into. The bottom of the cliff face was riddled with holes and ravines, and the cliff stretched for kilometers down the valley. “How many entrances are there?” he asked, feeling slightly overwhelmed.

Hound shrugged. “Lots. A few dozen, maybe more? They haven’t really been mapped because of all the shifting that happens: caverns open and collapse so frequently that there’s no real point in making maps.” He ignored Prowl’s startled look and stared down the valley. “They might come out of any one of those. So, Commander,” he said, reverting to Prowl’s wartime title, “should we split up and search the caves? Search them together? Stay here and wait for them to come out?” 

Prowl considered, trying to set aside the disturbing idea that Jazz and Bluestreak might have been caught in a cave collapse. “We only have one weapon. What is the possibility that we will encounter something hostile inside the caves?”

Hound thought for a moment. “Not sure. I know some guides have reported seeing pneuma-lions denning in caves occasionally, and I’d consider them hostile, but I don’t know if there are any dens here this season.” 

Possible hostiles, one weapon, two mechs, many caves. They did not want miss Jazz and Bluestreak coming out of a cave, but if they were hurt, it made sense to at least go partially into the caves to call for them. “We should set up camp at the base of this hill. If they emerge from a cave, they must come this way to go back towards Iacon, correct?” When Hound nodded, Prowl continued. “So, we will start by searching the cave closest to us. We will walk for one groon into the cave, calling and listening the whole way, then mark the entrance with rocks when we emerge, pointing at our camp. Then we will move onto the next cave.” He gestured to the ground under his pedes. “Hopefully, if we set up camp here and they emerge from a cavern while we are inside another one, they will see the camp and stop to wait.”

“That makes sense,” Hound said. With a grin he added, “That’s why you were the tactician and I was just the scout.”

Prowl helped Hound pull a tent from the trailer. “There was never such a thing as ‘just a scout.’ You routinely brought back valuable information that helped inform our actions.” He paused. “If I never told you so during the war: Thank you for your contribution. It was greatly appreciated.”

Hound looked surprised. “Well, thanks, Prowl. And you’re welcome. It’s good to hear that.”

Prowl nodded and set about getting the first tent erected. 

By the time they’d set up camp, the sun was dipping towards the horizon already. “If we begin now, we should have time to enter the first cavern before nightfall,” Prowl said. Hound agreed. He handed a portable lantern to Prowl, shouldered his rifle, and they made their way to the first entrance.

While the opening of the cave looked large, the cave itself quickly became narrow. The ground was littered with small rocks and chunks of metal and crystal, and the roof of the cavern extended upwards, far beyond the reach of their headlights. They walked carefully, picking their way over the debris, calling for Jazz and Bluestreak every few kliks.

“Have you ever entered these caves?” Prowl asked.

“No,” Hound replied. “It’s... generally considered a bad idea, what with the shifting and chances of collapses.” He flinched at the sound of a rock falling ahead of them.

“I understand.” Prowl flared his door wings, trying to pick up any trace of a living thing inside the cavern. “Jazz! Bluestreak!” he yelled, letting loose a whoop of his siren for good measure. 

Only the echo of his own voice came back to him.

* * *

Prowl stared into the power generator dully. He was so tired. They had only walked one groon into one cavern. How many more caverns were there? How could they know that Jazz and Bluestreak would even hear them, if they were inside one of the caverns they entered? What if they were trapped back where they had fallen? Was this effort completely futile? What were the chances he would ever see Jazz again?

With a frown, Prowl cancelled that thought chain.

He sipped his energon, trying not to think of how much fuel Jazz and Bluestreak had with them... Or how low on fuel they were probably getting now.

Prowl felt disgusted with himself. He had been so focused on getting to the cavern entrance that he had not really thought past that. He was getting soft. He was out of practice. Weak. Distracted. During the war, he would have been able to multitask these processes: focus on getting to the cavern and begin planning out a course of action to take once they arrived. He grimaced, cataloguing the ways he had failed in just the past cycle.

Glancing up, he caught Hound’s optics. The green mech was staring at him, a concerned frown on his face plates. Prowl pulled his field in against himself, although he was sitting far enough away from Hound that he doubted the other mech could sense his self-loathing.

“None of this is your fault, Prowl. I told you that before,” Hound said gently. “Don’t go beating yourself up about it.”

How did Hound know...? Suddenly, realization bloomed across his processor. Prowl stiffened and snapped his door wings back into their neutral position. Then he laughed mirthlessly and finished his energon. “You have probably become rather good at reading door wings, I imagine.”

Hound smiled slightly. “You aren’t quite as expressive as Blue, but yeah – I’ve picked up the basics and then some.”

A low-pitched wail rose from the caverns near them. Prowl felt his lines run cold; this howl was louder and more reminiscent of a mech in pain than any he’d heard before.

Then, faintly, the music started again.

Prowl did not immediately recognize the tune, but it was clearly music. The notes were muddy, but they cut through the howling of the wind. He listened for a moment. Something about the sound tickled his memory. Suddenly, he placed the sound, and jumped to his pedes.

“Prowl?” Hound asked.

“That is a vibroflute,” Prowl said, his door wings flaring in excitement. “Jazz brought one with him on the trip.” 

Hound stood up as well. “That means they’re ok!” He paused, and quietly added, “Or at least Jazz is.”

Casting a quick smile at Hound, Prowl said, “Jazz would not have left Bluestreak behind.” He stepped away from the campsite towards the closest cavern entrance and tilted his helm. “But... It sounds like it is getting closer.” He took another few steps towards the cavern, letting his excitement flare into his field. “Jazz!” he yelled. 

“Jazz!”

A hand fell on his shoulder. “Wait... That could be coming from any of the caverns,” Hound said. 

“But it is so clear,” Prowl said, taking another half step forward. His door wings quivered as he listened. Within moments, the music faded as the wind picked up, until the howling drowned out the notes completely.

“We’re both slagged, and we need some rest.” Hound said, letting his hand drop to his side. He took a step to stand next to Prowl. “We’ll keep looking in the morning.”

Clinging to the evidence that Jazz was still functioning, Prowl nodded and turned back towards the tent.

* * *

Prowl came out of recharge slowly. He still felt tired, but his HUD informed him that he had actually managed to get almost six full groons of recharge. At least it had taken the edge off of his fatigue.

He onlined his optics. The sun was above the horizon, and a reddish light streamed in through the tent walls. Next to him, Hound’s systems hummed quietly in their recharge state. 

Staring at the green mech for a klik, Prowl felt another stab of guilt. He had been so consumed with finding Jazz and worrying whether his conjunx was all right that he had essentially ignored Hound’s own worries about Bluestreak. Of course Hound was just as worried about finding Bluestreak as Prowl was about finding Jazz. Hound also had the added weight of keeping Prowl safe and both of them on course during their drive to this valley. 

Thinking back to how much that mirrored his own responsibilities during the war, Prowl decided to let Hound recharge for a bit longer.

Prowl left the tent and stretched, trying to work out the tension in his back struts. He turned and was just shaking his door wings out when he saw a strange mech sitting by the power generator.

“Good recharge, I hope?” the strange mech said.

Prowl froze and flared his door wings. He realized that the mech was not visible to any of his sensors, except optical and audio. So, he had some kind of stealth mods.

::Hound, we have a visitor.::

He received a sleepy non-response from Hound, so he repeated his message and added a glyph for urgency. ::A what? A visitor?:: Finally he heard Hound move inside the tent behind him.

The other mech stared back at Prowl. He was easily another head taller than Prowl, had a red visor and a mouthplate, and – based on the gun barrel visible over his shoulder – was some kind of tankformer. A mottled and scratched grey paintjob suggested that he had been living away from the city for some time, or did not care much for his own appearance. He sprawled with a casual pose, as if it was not unusual for him to invite himself into other mechs’ campsites. 

“Not very talkative?” the stranger asked. He shifted his helm slightly as Hound came out of the tent, taking in the rifle in the green mech’s hand. “That won’t do you any good,” he warned.

Ignoring the stranger’s tacit threat, Prowl asked, “Who are you?” 

“And how did you get past the motion detectors?” demanded Hound. 

The stranger waved his hand dismissively. “Nice tech, but it’s got some weaknesses,” he said. He levelled his gaze at them. “Who are you?”

“You are in our camp,” Prowl said. “And I asked first. Who are you?”

The stranger shrugged. “I watch over the plains, and the mechanimals that live here.” He pointed at the rifle in Hound’s hand. “And if you intend on harming any of the machadrons, you will answer to me,” he said matter-of-factly. He looked at Hound intently. “I recognize you,” he said. “You’re here a few times a vorn. You’re usually with other mechs. Why?”

Hound nodded cautiously. “I’m a guide. My partner and I bring mechs out here camping to see the canyons and wildlife.” He saw the stranger glance at the rifle in his hand, and added, “We never bring hunting parties here.”

“Other mechs do,” he stranger growled.

“Not us! Not here. The machadron herds... We know there’s too few of them as there is. The mechs we bring out here come just to sightsee.” Hound shrugged. “I know other guides don’t. I’m sorry for that.”

Prowl frowned. “We are just looking for our friends.”

“There are more of you?” the stranger asked sharply.

“Two others. They fell into one of the canyons,” Prowl said. 

The stranger tilted his helm. “My condolences on your loss,” he said.

Prowl stood up straight, and felt Hound stiffen next to him. “We have reason to believe they still function,” he said. “One of them plays music, and we have heard it two nights in a row.”

The stranger reached into one of his compartments. Hound immediately shouldered his rifle and aimed it at the stranger. The other mech paused and then carefully pulled out a vibroflute. “Did the music sound like this?”

Putting the vibroflute to his lips, the stranger played the snippet of music that they had heard the night before.

Prowl could not stop his door wings from drooping. That was exactly what the music had sounded like. It had not been Jazz playing after all. 

He was back to not knowing whether Jazz was functioning or not. 

“It wasn’t just the flute,” Hound said sharply, lowering his weapon. “Prowl thought he heard singing, too.”

The stranger shrugged, tucking his flute back into his compartments. “The wind makes strange sounds at night.” 

Hound pointed at the strange mech. “Listen, we don’t need your negativity. We... We know they’re all right, and we know that we’re going to find them, and...” he trailed off. “We need to find them,” he said quietly. “They have to be ok.”

Prowl spared at glance at Hound. The green mech’s field had burned suddenly with sorrow and guilt for a moment before being coloured with determination. Turning back to the stranger, Prowl said, “All we want is to find our friends, and we will be gone from here.”

The stranger looked at them, his expression unreadable behind his visor and mouthplate. “You understand that if your friends fell into the canyons, they’ve probably been deactivated. In fact, you’ll be lucky to even find their frames.”

Hound growled, unconsciously gripping the rifle tighter. “We’re going to keep looking,” he said.

Shrugging and looking away nonchalantly, the stranger said, “If they weren’t killed in the fall, then they may have been crushed in a rockfall. They’re common in the canyons, you know. All that shifting, the metal and rocks of the ground never resting... And if they survived that, there are predators that roam the caves. Did they have a weapon? Ammunition? Enough to take down an alpha machadron? Or a pack of hellhounds? And how about fuel? Even if they managed to escape all of those things, can they survive starvation? And if they’re in stasis from lack of fuel, how do you expect to find their frames?” He looked back at Prowl and Hound, and tilted his helm questioningly. “How long are you really going to look?”

Prowl’s audials rang as the stranger continued to speak. His mind raced. 

_I lost Jazz. I had just gotten him back, and he is gone again. Gone. After I spent all of that time alone, Jazz had come back to me and I have lost him again._

He remembered seeing Jazz that first time after a thousand vorn, his apparently lifeless frame crushed beyond recognition. 

_He came back to me: damaged and fragmented, but still Jazz. He came back, and I have lost him again._

_Jazz!_

Recognizing that a crash was building in his processor, Prowl clawed at anything that could keep him from suffering the inevitable seizure brought on by his processor freezing up. Despair, hopelessness, fear, guilt... Each of these emotions swelled within him as he fought to keep upright. 

He was dimly aware of Hound calling his designation, his voice urgent, his hand on Prowl’s shoulder. 

Then he heard Hound snap at the stranger to shut up.

Yes. That is what Prowl needed. Anger. Determination. Fury. Those were emotions with action behind them. 

Those were emotions he could work with.

Prowl allowed the rage to build in him for a moment, then flared his door wings wide. He stared at the stranger with blazing optics. “We **will** find them. We **will not** leave them behind.” _I left him behind once. I will not do it again._ “We **will** find them, and we **will** bring them home... Active or not.” _Jazz will not lie crushed, lost and forgotten, beneath a kilometer of rock, ever again._

_I will find him._

The stranger’s visor was focused on Prowl. In a softer tone, he said, “You realize that you are attempting the improbable, if not the impossible.”

Taking a step forward, Prowl gathered every bit of fury and anger and frustration that he was feeling and threw it into his posture and his voice. He thundered, “I will bring every resource at my disposal to these plains, and use them to search every nook and cranny. I will comb every culvert, every ravine, every chasm and canyon. I will bring combiner teams to remove every rock and stone from these plains to find them. I will rip this place apart with my bare hands if I have to! **We are not leaving them here!** ”

Prowl’s words echoed back to them from the hills surrounding them.

Hound was staring at him, his mouth agape. His field was thick with astonishment, then gratitude. The green four-by-four turned on the stranger. “He’s right. There’s no way we’re leaving them here.”

There was a long silence. Then the stranger climbed slowly to his pedes, keeping his visor on the weapon Hound leveled at him again. “If I help you find your friends, you will leave?”

“Yes,” Prowl said without hesitation. Hound glanced at him again, then he also nodded.

Crossing his arms, the stranger finally nodded. “Fine. I’ll help you.”

Prowl exchanged glances with Hound, who lowered his rifle. Prowl exvented softly to calm himself. Inclining his door wings towards the stranger, he said, “Thank you.” He narrowed his optics and added, “What do you demand in return?”

“Only what I asked earlier: that you leave once you’ve found your friends.” The stranger inclined his helm towards Prowl. “What should I call you?”

“My designation is Prowl. This is Hound,” Prowl said. “And you?”

“Grouser.”

Prowl’s door wings shot up over his shoulders. He heard Hound’s engine cough. “Grouser?” he repeated. When the strange mech nodded, Prowl said, “There is a story about you that I was recently told.”

Grouser laughed. “Let me guess. I fell into a chasm and was never seen again, but I haunt the plains as a warning to others not to come near.”

“Something like that,” said Prowl, inclining a door wing towards Grouser.

“It’s a convenient story. I’m happy it still seems to be circulating,” Grouser said. “I prefer to be left alone. That story means that no one ever comes looking, and mechs who come here... Well, they don’t stay long, sightseeing or not.” He looked at Hound pointedly.

“So if you fell in, and you’re here, then there’s still a chance our friends are...” Hound’s vocalizer clicked off before he could finish his sentence.

“Don’t believe all the stories you hear,” Grouser said grimly. He glanced up at the sky. “We’re burning daylight. What’s your search plan?”

* * *

They drove to the seventh cave opening, the fourth one they were going to search that cycle. The sun was already dipping low on the horizon; this would probably be the last cave they could search before nightfall.

Grouser had flicked his digits dismissively at the third entrance when they reached it. “There’s no point in searching that one,” he said. “There’s a cave-in just a little ways inside. Can’t get past it.”

“But what if Blue and Jazz are in there?” Hound asked, peering into the darkness of the cave.

“Then you’ll need some stasis pods. Might as well see if we can find them in one of the other caves before they deactivate,” Grouser said blithely.

“They could be on the other side of the cave in,” said Prowl. “Trapped.”

“No way of knowing from here,” Grouser said with a shrug, striding past him on his longer legs. “But if you want to waste time looking at a wall of rock, be my guest.”

They walked on.

They skipped the fifth cave as well, which was more obviously blocked with a huge boulder. Now, driving their way to the seventh cave, Hound pulled up next to Prowl.

::Earlier today... did you mean what you said? About bringing combiner teams... and everything else... to find them?::

::I meant every single glyph.:: Prowl drifted closer to Hound and released his field slightly, brushing it against Hound’s with a feeling of resolve. 

Resolve was all that Prowl could muster after his outburst that morning. His tac-net had been providing him with more and more gloomy predictions about their chances of finding Jazz and Bluestreak intact and online. 

**Scenario 1:** Jazz and Bluestreak would be out of fuel rations by now, and their tanks were probably close to running dry. If they did not find them soon, Jazz and Bluestreak would fall offline from lack of fuel. If they were offline, they could not respond to calls from Prowl and Hound. _Probability of positive outcome: 39%_

 **Scenario 2:** Jazz and Bluestreak had tried to conserve their fuel by staying put. This would keep them online for longer, but at the cost of not getting close enough to a cave entrance for them to hear Prowl and Hound calling for them. So they would sit, eventually run out of fuel, and fall offline. _Probability of positive outcome: 33%_

 **Scenario 3:** Only one of them was online, and would probably have sufficient fuel to travel for longer, or to wait for rescue longer. Would they leave the other one behind? There was only a 4% chance they would do that. Instead, they would probably stay with their offline friend, or try to carry them. Carrying the offline mech meant they would move more slowly, and burn more fuel. So their chances of finding the one left online were slim, and that one would also eventually run out of fuel, and fall offline. _Probability of positive outcome: 12%_

Prowl cancelled the calculations. The rest of the scenarios listed had even lower probabilities of positive outcomes. 

Grouser was waiting for them at the seventh cave entrance. “There are some big boulders to squeeze past in this one,” he said, walking ahead of them. “But you little mechs shouldn’t have much trouble.”

Hound cupped his hands around his mouth. “Blue! Jazz!”

They listened for a moment and heard nothing. 

Exventing, Grouser said, “C’mon, let’s get going. It’ll be getting dark by the time we turn around and get out of here.” 

They stepped into the darkness of the cave, calling and listening as they went.

* * *

Hound offered Grouser the empty tent, but he refused. “I’ve been sleeping under the stars for almost eight hundred vorn,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”

Prowl and Hound drank their fuel in silence, watching the tankformer. He lay on his back, just outside the glow of the power generator. His visor was still illuminated, indicating that he was staring at the sky.

::He gives me the creeps.:: Hound’s comm message over their private channel was clipped, a sign of the normally cheerful mech’s anxious mood. ::I can see him, and I can hear him, but it’s like he’s not even there.::

Prowl looked across to Grouser and fanned his door wings wide, increasing the sensitivity of his sensors. He could sense Hound beside him, a ball of stress and tension. The power generator thrummed steadily, and he felt the latent heat radiating off the trailer and tents that they had soaked up in the daytime sun. He stretched his sensors further, detecting the rhythmic oscillation of the sensor grid as the motion detectors cycled, and dimly felt the field of a small mechanimal slipping through the rocks just outside the camp’s perimeter.

Where the tankformer stretched out on the ground was just a blank spot. If he had not had his optics online, he would not have known there was a mech there at all.

::He has some very sophisticated stealth mods. I imagine he uses them to avoid trouble with wildlife.:: Prowl finished drinking his fuel as he returned Hound’s comm.

::No, you don’t understand. I can’t smell him. There isn’t a single stealth mod I know of that can do that.:: Hound glanced at Prowl, and then back at Grouser. ::During the height of the war, even Jazz and Mirage didn’t have anything that would prevent me from smelling them. Everyone’s got a smell: the oil in your joints, the coolant and energon in your systems, even the metal in your frame when your engine gets hot… It all has a scent. That’s why Ravage was always such a menace to Jazz – he could smell him wherever he went.:: Hound had brought his knees up to his chest, and rested his arms on his knees. ::It’s like he’s not real.::

Prowl looked back at Grouser. ::He is obviously real. He must have some way of masking his scent.::

Hound glowered at Grouser over his arms. ::I don’t like it.::

“The conversation that you two aren’t having about me is deafening. If it gets any louder, I’m going to have to find someplace else to recharge,” Grouser said, still staring at the sky.

Hound jumped. “We were just discussing our search plan for tomorrow,” he lied.

Grouser scoffed, turning his helm to look at Hound. “Sure you were.” He looked back up at the sky. “And I get it. Some strange mech rolls into your camp, tells you that your friends are probably lost and gone forever, and then finally agrees to help you find them. And on top of it all, he’s an aft.” He laughed, then quieted. “I just wanted you to understand what you’re up against.” 

“We fully understand,” Prowl said. He firmly held his door wings steady in a neutral position. “But we also cannot give up.”

Hound nodded, but said nothing.

Grouser turned his helm to look at them again. “I know. I believe you. And sorry for being an aft.” He wiggled his digits in the air before dropping them back onto his chest. “I’m out of practice with all that interpersonal stuff. I’ve been on my own for a long time.”

“Why do you stay out here?” Hound asked. 

“The city has too many mechs. Too much noise. Too few stars. No wildlife.” Grouser gestured with his hand again, waving it broadly. “These plains… They speak to me. I understand them. And the machadrons… They were so rare before. They still are, really. If I can help keep them safe, maybe when I finally go, I can feel like I did something with my life.”

Prowl felt a grudging respect for the mech. After the war was over, he, too, had desired solitude. However, his sense of duty kept him around other mechs, working towards what he felt was a better future. He knew what it was like to want to leave a legacy. 

“When you go? Go where?” Hound asked.

“To the Well,” Grouser said. “We’re all going to end up there eventually.”

The wind rose just then, and a low keening howl drifted from the valley below them.

“Best lullaby in the galaxy,” Grouser murmured, and offlined his visor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I posted a photo](https://pipermca.dreamwidth.org/2766.html) of the area that was partially the inspiration for the canyons that Jazz and Bluestreak fell into... Only the canyons they fell into were many, many times deeper.
> 
> Still battling with hotel wifi and my laptop, so please let me know of any formatting issues.


	6. Lost and Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl and Hound’s search comes to an end.

The second full cycle searching the caves dragged on the same as the first. They would enter a cave that Grouser deemed open enough to bother with, walk for a groon into the cave, calling and listening, and then walk back out. They marked the cave entrance with a small rock cairn, and then moved on to the next cave.

It was exhausting, physically and mentally. Prowl had lost count of the times they had heard phantom voices, only to realize it was their own calls echoing strangely back to them. With each cave they entered, Prowl felt a flicker of hope. Maybe they would find them this time. Maybe this was the right cave. Then, when a groon had passed and they stopped to turn around and leave again, Prowl always stood and stared into the darkness. He tried not to imagine Jazz’s frame, just out of range of their lights, trapped beneath a rock or lying offline against the wall of the cave.

He tried not to imagine it, but it was hard.

When they were about to enter the eighteenth cave (or was it the nineteenth? Prowl had lost count), Grouser paused at the entrance. He tilted his helm as if listening. 

“Not this one,” he said finally, and walked past it.

“What’s wrong with this one?” Hound asked. He peered into the darkness. “I don’t see anything blocking the way.”

“The next one will be better,” the tankformer said. 

Hound glanced at Prowl, who looked up at the sun. They would be able to search one or maybe two more caves, and then they would need to stop for the night. At this point, he did not see what difference it made if they skipped a cave that their guide deemed unsuitable. Prowl shrugged at Hound and followed Grouser to the next cave.

His tac-net altered the probabilities of finding Jazz and Bluestreak again. He watched the odds drop, and tried not to let his door wings drop with them.

“This cave has a pretty flat floor; most of the crystals grow on the sides in this one,” Grouser said as they entered the next cave. “Machadrons come in here sometimes to graze.” Sure enough, they saw scrapes on the floor of the cave, indicating that large mechanimals had recently passed this way.

“An even floor means we will be able to walk further into this cave than previous ones,” Prowl said, holding his field close. He knew Hound was doing the same thing; neither wanted to express hope, just in case this cave also led to disappointment.

“Maybe you’ll get lucky this time,” Grouser said, pausing behind them to look at a growth of crystals on the wall.

As they walked, Prowl’s tac-net scrolled fuel usage statistics up on his HUD. Regardless of how frugal they had been, Jazz and Bluestreak would be running critically low on fuel by now.

“Bluestreak! Jazz!” Hound shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. Prowl sounded his siren after Hound’s shout. They waited while the echoes faded, then walked forward again.

They proceeded like that for half a groon, shouting, listening, and walking. Prowl felt his spark sink, bit by bit, as they moved forward.

Nothing. Again.

“Blue! Jazz!” 

Suddenly, Hound froze in mid step. His helm was trained on the darkness ahead of them, just out of range of their headlights. “Listen!”

Prowl listened. And heard nothing. “Echoes again, probably,” he said quietly.

“No, it wasn’t,” Hound said insistently. After a moment, he cupped his hands around his mouth again. “Blue! Jazz!”

Prowl flared his door wings and listened, augmenting his audio reception as much as he could.

On Earth, Jazz had been fascinated with all the sounds that humans could produce with just their bodies. While Cybertronians had to be purpose-made or have the frame type to make some sounds (such as a siren), any human could be taught to make a vast array of noises. 

Jazz could imitate many of these sounds, but there was one particular sound that eluded him for a very long time. Eventually, through countless groons of practice and study with their human allies, he was able to replicate it. Prowl still remembered the cycle that Jazz had burst into his office with a huge grin on his face. Without explanation, Jazz stood in front of Prowl’s desk, stuck his digits in the corners of his mouth, did something odd with his ventilation, and produced an audial-piercing whistle.

That was the noise that Prowl heard when he listened to the darkness in the cave.

“Jazz!” Prowl ran forward, hearing Hound on his heels. “Hound, I heard him. Jazz! Bluestreak!”

They ran for – what, a klik? It seemed like longer. Then... There, in the distance. Light. Light against a cave wall. The indistinct light resolved into a dim lantern, bobbing slowly as a mech walked slowly towards them.

The light resolved into a vague shape, then a substantial form. The form came into focus, becoming Jazz: half holding, half dragging a red and silver mech who clung to his shoulders.

“Jazz!” As Hound ran forward to pull Bluestreak from Jazz’s frame, Prowl gathered his conjunx in his arms. “Jazz,” Prowl whispered, wrapping his arms around Jazz’s frame, pressing him into his. “I was so worried.”

“Hey, Prowler,” Jazz said, his voice disturbingly weak. He clung feebly to Prowl. “Ya sure are a sight for sore optics.”

“Jazz. Are you all right?” Prowl painted his digits across Jazz’s frame, feeling for damage. He finally pulled back to look at Jazz’s face, and a shiver ran down his spinal strut at how dim Jazz’s visor was.

“I’ve been better. I’ll be all right one I get some fuel in me,” Jazz said, turning his helm to look back at his companion. “But Blue’s in bad shape.”

Prowl finally glanced away from Jazz to look at the other missing mech. Bluestreak had crumpled to his knees. He hunched over in Hound’s arms, who knelt before him, cradling the gunner to his chest and murmuring into his audial.

Jazz ticked items off on his digits. “Blue’s gonna need fuel, a pain blocker, recharge, and a medic. In that order,” he said. He leaned heavily on Prowl. “Somethin’ in his processor is glitched. He also busted an optic and his chevron, and his shoulder and door wing are slagged.” 

“Fuel we have.” Prowl produced two ration packs from his compartments, and handed one to Jazz. Jazz gracelessly melted to the floor of the cavern and began greedily gulping at the energon. Prowl opened the second ration pack and gave to Hound. “Get this in him,” Prowl said.

Hound nodded, his optics fixed on Bluestreak’s face. Prowl could feel the distress in Hound’s field as the four-by-four took the ration from Prowl. “Drink up, Blue.” Hound held the cube to Bluestreak’s mouth. “Even just a little. There you go,” he murmured encouragingly as the gunner sipped at the fuel. 

“Hound has another two ration packs,” Prowl said. They had been carrying them ever since they started searching the caves, just in case. “Once you have finished that, he will give you another one.” He crouched down next to Jazz and collected him in his arms for another tight hug. “I am going to get the trailer and a med kit from camp. I will be back as soon as I can.”

Jazz grabbed Prowl’s chin and pressed his lips to Prowl’s. Melting into the caress, Prowl gripped the sides of Jazz’s helm. When their lips parted, Jazz rested his helm’s crest against Prowl’s chevron. “Hurry back, Prowler,” Jazz mumbled. 

Prowl transformed and drove from the cavern as fast as he dared.

* * *

By the time that Prowl returned with the trailer, they loaded Bluestreak into it, and they got back to their camp, the sun was well below the horizon. 

Hound fussed over Bluestreak. He produced cube after cube of energon for the Praxian, until Bluestreak told him he’d had enough, thank you very much. The pain blocker eased the rigidity in his frame, and he was able to look around without squinting his one working optic in pain. But Hound tensed every time Bluestreak’s vocalizer stuttered or glitched.

“W-w-we’ll get this fiiiii... _*fzzt*_ fixed as soon as we get back t-t-to Iacon,” Bluestreak said after refusing another cube of energon. His helm drooped slightly. “But right n-n-now I need to r-r-recharge before I c-c-collapse right here.” He looked up at Hound with a pleading look. “C-c-come with me?”

“Of course, Blue,” Hound said. He glanced at Prowl, who had Jazz curled in his lap.

“We will leave for Iacon in the morning?” Prowl asked. 

Hound nodded. “If we head straight for the mountains and away from the canyons here,” he said, pointing towards the peaks visible in the moonlight on the horizon, “we should be far enough away from the ore deposits in this area by evening to use our comms and call for an evac flight.”

Nodding, Prowl said, “Have a good night, Hound. Bluestreak... it is good to have you back.”

With a sleepy unintelligible mutter, Bluestreak nodded and awkwardly made his way into the tent, leaning on Hound for support.

Prowl looked down at Jazz. The racer was curled on his side, his arms wrapped around Prowl’s waist and his helm resting in Prowl’s lap. His visor was dark, and his ventilations were slow and steady. Prowl wondered if he had dropped into recharge. He was sure that Jazz needed it. 

But then Jazz spoke. “I knew ya’d find us,” he said quietly. 

Prowl stroked Jazz’s helm. “I think you had more faith than I did,” Prowl said. “We were up against some incredible odds.” Suddenly, remembering the provocative words that Grouser had used when they had first met, he realized that he had not seen the tankformer since finding Jazz and Bluestreak. In the rush to get Bluestreak back to camp, and the overwhelming relief at having found the two missing mechs, Prowl had completely missed his departure. “Fortunately, we had some assistance.”

“Really?” Jazz onlined his visor and looked up at Prowl. “So did we! We ran into a mech down in the caves who helped us limp along. Blue’s sense of direction was getting really unreliable there near the end. Havin’ Grouser there to help us out was a big help.”

Prowl stared down at Jazz, vaguely aware that his door wings were tipping up to his shoulders in unease. “Grouser?” he repeated.

Jazz laughed. “Yeah, I know what yer thinkin’. But he said that was his designation.” Jazz offlined his visor again and snuggled back into Prowl’s lap. “He scared the innermost energon outta me when he first showed up, though. He appeared outta the dark, all glowin’ and bein’ sneaky and stuff. Like a ghost!” Jazz chuckled. “Then he told us his designation, and, well... Ya can guess what we thought.” Jazz gave half a shrug with the shoulder not buried in Prowl’s legs. “He said he’d help us, if only to get us outta his caverns. That’s what he called ‘em, ‘my caverns.’ He must live out here somewhere.”

“You said he was... glowing?” Prowl’s plating prickled.

“Yeah, creepy, huh? He said it was somethin’ in the dust in the caverns. Said that it’ll get all over ya if ya spend any time down there. If he was tellin’ the truth, then Blue and me are probably glowin’ too, if ya turn the lights off. We both need a washrack, bad.”

Prowl stared out over the valley. “We had assistance as well, from a mech who called himself Grouser.” He did not look down when Jazz onlined his visor again to look up at him. “Two cycles ago, he came to our camp. He was insistent that we leave these plains as soon as possible. He finally agreed to help look for you when we said we had no intention of leaving without you and Bluestreak.”

Jazz uncurled and sat up. He turned to face Prowl, his field a curious mix of alarm and excitement. “Two cycles ago... That’s about when he… our Grouser, I mean… showed himself to us, too. And he never left us.”

Prowl shifted his gaze from the darkened valley to Jazz. “This is... improbable. A mech cannot be in two places at once.”

“And ya said it yerself, Prowler... There’s no such things as ghosts.” Jazz gave Prowl a nervous smile. “Right?”

A howling wail rose around them, its pitch rising and falling in a macabre imitation of a lullaby.

* * *

Jazz peered around the door into the small room at the two mechs inside. “Hey hey, are ya up for some company?”

“Jazz! And Prowl!” Bluestreak said, sitting up straighter on the medical slab, his door wings perking. “You should have let Hound know you were coming.”

Hound smiled at Bluestreak. “Actually, they did. They wanted to surprise you.”

“Well, you can officially call me surprised. And you didn’t need to come all the way down to the medical centre,” Bluestreak said. “Although I guess you don’t live all that far away. It sure is good to see you again, even though I just finished spending more time with Jazz than I really ever needed. No offense, Jazz.”

“None taken, Blue,” Jazz said with a grin. “And I see they got yer glitch fixed.”

“Yes, thank Primus.” Bluestreak’s relief was evident in the cant of his door wings and his field. “I know I was really hard to understand, which made me not want to talk, which made Jazz worried so he tried to get me to talk (I know that’s what you were trying to do, Jazz), but I was so hard to understand... I was getting irritated listening to that stutter, so I can just imagine how bad it was for Jazz.”

“I really didn’t mind,” said Jazz. “I knew that if you were talkin’, you were doing all right, so hearin’ ya was actually a good thing... Even with the glitch.”

Bluestreak smiled at Jazz, his field thrown wide with gratitude. “The medics said that it was exactly the right thing for you to do, too. When my vocal processes were engaged, even when it was glitching, it was helping keep other processes from being caught in a loop and crashing. So... Thank you.”

“Do you know when they will allow you to go home?” Prowl asked.

“They want to keep him for another cycle or two, just to make sure there aren’t any other issues, and to allow his sensors to recalibrate fully,” Hound said, looking at Bluestreak with a concerned expression. 

Prowl grimaced. He knew how uncomfortable it was to recalibrate sensors after damage to a door wing or other sensor array, like a Praxian’s chevron. He lowered his voice slightly. “I am sorry, I did not realize you were still recalibrating. Did you want us to go?”

“No!” Bluestreak held out his hands. “Most of the recalibration is done; it’s just fine tuning now. I would have said something when you came in if everything was still overly sensitive. So please stay. Besides, I am bored out of my helm. Hound is here every cycle for as long as they let him stay, and he’s brought me vids and things to read (which I really appreciate!) for after he leaves, but then when he leaves I don’t have anyone to talk to,” he said, a whine creeping into his tone. “It’s so boring.”

“The hostel you recommended is great, Prowl,” Hound said. “Thank you very much.”

“You are welcome. Although you are still welcome to stay with us if you wish,” Prowl replied.

Hound waved his hand. “Thanks, but the hostel is closer to the medical centre than your place is.” He looked at Bluestreak and squeezed the hand he was holding. “I don’t want to be very far away from Blue. Not for a long while.”

Prowl glanced at Jazz. He knew how Hound felt.

Bringing out a data pad, Prowl said, “I also brought some interesting news,” he said. “I asked Orion Pax to look for any information in the archives regarding a mech named Grouser. Would you like to hear it?”

Bluestreak and Hound looked at each other. Bluestreak said, “We would. The more than we compare notes, we are sure that we were both seeing the same mech... Which can’t be right... Right?”

Prowl inclined his door wings towards Bluestreak before starting to read. “A mech with the designation Grouser arrived on Cybertron just after the Reformatting. He came from the colony Omnitron,” Prowl said, looking down at the data pad. “Sixty two vorn after arriving on Cybertron, he was reported missing by another mech, designated Blacklight. Enforcer records at the time indicate he was last seen in the area that would later come to be called the Howling Plains. His frame was never located.”

“The story is... true?” whispered Bluestreak. 

Jazz smirked at Prowl. “That’s what I asked!”

Bluestreak looked at Hound. “I mean, I know the mechs in the area swear that the story’s true,” he said. “But...” He looked at Prowl, his door wings quivering slightly. “I know we teased you a little, but we really did think it was just a story.”

“Well, now you can add to it the next time you tell it,” Jazz said. “Tell them how the ghost of Grouser helped us out of a jam!”

“There are any number of explanations for Grouser’s appearance that do not require a supernatural source,” Prowl said, ignoring Jazz’s comment. “For example, he may have been using a hologram to project himself from one place to another.”

Hound frowned. “I doubt that. The amount of energy that would take to project a hologram that far of a distance and for that long is... incredible. And he spoke! Holograms don’t make noise.”

“Holomatter avatars do,” Prowl said.

“But if it was holomatter, then he should have lit up your sensors like a laser show. You said you couldn’t pick him up with anything other than optics and audials,” Hound said insistently.

The four mechs sat in silence for a few kliks.

Finally Jazz said, “Ya know, I kinda want to go back now. To the Howling Plains, I mean. I want to see if we can find him, and tell him thanks.” He looked around at the other mechs. “I mean, even if he is a ghost, he really did help us out.” Jazz looked at Bluestreak. “I don’t think we woulda made it outta there without him helping us out.” 

Bluestreak nodded. “After I started getting really confused from lack of fuel, he helped us out with directions. We might have gone around and around in circles without his help.”

“And he steered us away from caves that had rock falls in them. You know, the caves that were blocked.” Hound looked at Prowl. “And on that last cycle, when we finally found them, it’s like he knew what cave they were going to be in.”

“If he was so benevolent, then why did he not steer us to the right cave in the first place?” Prowl asked skeptically. “And why did he go to such efforts to dissuade us from looking for you?”

Jazz looked at Prowl. Crossing his arms, tapped his digits on his upper arms. “You know... He was giving us the same slag. He told us we were going to deactivate down there. Told us that no one would ever even find us. Then... suddenly he changed his mind. He said he’d help us get outta there, and that was that.”

“It was Prowl.” Everyone turned to look at Hound when he spoke. Hound sat up a little straighter. “Prowl made it clear that we weren’t leaving until we found you.” He squeezed Bluestreak’s hand again, then gave Prowl a grin. “It was a speech worthy of Optimus Prime. I still get shivers thinking about it.” He shrugged. “Anyway, Blue and I compared notes and turns out that Grouser – both version of him – changed their minds right at the same time.”

Jazz turned to look at Prowl with an awed expression. “What the slag did you say to him?”

Prowl hunched his shoulders slightly and lowered his door wings. “I just said that we were not leaving without you.” He gave Jazz a shy look. “I told him that I would move every rock on the plains to find you if I had to, but I was not leaving you behind.” He lowered his voice until it was almost inaudible. “Not again.”

Reaching out his hand to take Prowl’s, Jazz smiled. “Well... Thanks, Prowler. And now I know you can do anything, even convincing a ghost to help us out.”

Prowl exvented. “There are no such things as ghosts.” But his expression had become thoughtful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The epilogue will be posted in time for Halloween. :)


	7. Epilogue

“It’s a little humbling, you know, that it took us four or five whole cycles to drive this distance, and a shuttle can cross it in just three groons,” Bluestreak said.

Jazz looked away from the window. “Sure, but it’s nowhere near as fun this way. I really did have a good time on that camping trip.” At Bluestreak’s astonished exclamation, he added, “Well, ya know... Minus the peril and injury and stuff.”

“Yeah. I guess it was pretty fun before Jazz dragged me off a cliff. We should do another one sometime,” Bluestreak said. He looked over at Hound, who was peering out the window in fascination. “The Mithril Sea is really beautiful just after the rainy season.”

“I’d like that! Prowl, would you be up for that?” Jazz asked, nudging Prowl.

Prowl looked up from the data pad he’d been reading, and reviewed the last few kliks of conversation he recorded in his short-term memory. He was trying to get caught up on some work, and really had not been listening. “Camping? Again?” He glanced at Jazz’s eager expression, then looked over at Bluestreak and Hound. “Can you guarantee that a trip to the Mithril Sea would be less... taxing than our last trip?”

Hound laughed. “We will do our very best,” he said. “In fact, if you’d like, we can arrange accommodations at the resort when we arrive.”

Prowl’s door wings tipped upwards slightly at that, but he glanced at Jazz when he groaned. “A resort? That’s not camping!” Jazz complained.

The shuttle pilot interrupted their conversation. “We are approaching the coordinates you provided,” he said.

Prowl did not look out the window; he had never been fond of heights. Jazz, however, had his face plates pressed against the window. “There’s the cliff, and all the caves,” he said. “It doesn’t look all that different.”

“It has only been a single vorn,” Prowl said, stowing his work and pulling out a different data pad. “I do not imagine a lot has changed.”

After they landed, Prowl advised the pilot that they would be back within a groon. He transformed and followed Bluestreak, Jazz, and Hound down the switchback trail to the base of the cliff.

Hound stood where he and Prowl had set up their camp when they were looking for their missing partners. “Did you want to do it here?” he asked.

“This is as good of a place as any,” Bluestreak said. “Unless you think we should be closer to the caves? Or inside the one we came out of?” He peered down the cliff face. “Which one was it again?”

“Well, this spot here is where he came and found Prowl and Hound,” Jazz said. He looked at Prowl. “What do you think?”

Prowl shrugged. “I think this is a waste of time and energy, coming all the way out here to do this. I do not think it matters.”

Jazz gave Prowl a lopsided grin. “All right, we’ll do it here, then.” He gestured to Prowl. “Go ahead.” 

Exventing sharply, Prowl gripped the data pad. He felt extremely silly, but set his door wings into a neutral angle and began to speak. “Hello, Grouser. We are here to thank you for your assistance in helping reunite us with our friends. After discussing it, we realized that we would likely not have succeeded if you had not helped us.

“We understand that you were only trying to protect the machadron herds. We also know that while we were not here to hunt them, other mechs do come here to hunt. With so few machadron living, every single herd member is important. We understand your suspicion of any mechs who spend time in this area.

“With that in mind, Bluestreak, Hound, and Jazz petitioned the Council to protect the machadron herds on these plains.” He exvented softly again. “Due to a sentence I received some time ago, I could not add my name to the petition, but I assisted them in drafting it. Several Council members agreed with our petition, and drafted a bill in response. The bill was passed a deca-cycle ago. It is now illegal for anyone to hunt machadron on the Howling Plains.” Prowl held the data pad aloft. “The text of the bill is on this data pad. I will leave it here.” He put the data pad on the ground at his pedes.

“Again, thank you. We wish you well.” Prowl dipped his head and lowered his door wings slightly. He heard the other three mechs also say their thanks, and then looked up. “Are we done here?” he asked, taking a step backwards.

“We are, Prowler. And thank you, too,” Jazz said, taking Prowl’s arm. “I know ya didn’t want to come all the way out here, but I’m glad ya did.”

Prowl slid his hand down and grasped Jazz’s hand, giving it a quick squeeze. “You are welcome, Jazz,” he said.

They drove back up the hill to the shuttle, boarded, and strapped back in. “Back to Iacon?” the pilot asked. When Prowl nodded, the pilot shrugged. “Easiest shanix I’ve ever made,” he muttered.

On the flight back to Iacon, Prowl pulled out his work and was reviewing another supply request when the pilot called for him. “Sir... We’re receiving a transmission. It’s addressed to you.”

“To me?” Prowl put his work away again. “It is probably my office,” he told Jazz, getting out of his seat. 

Making his way to the front of the shuttle, Prowl leaned into the pilot’s area. “I can take the call now,” he said.

“It’s not a call, sir. It was just a message.” The pilot pointed at a screen off to this right. “Tap the accept button on the console there to read it.”

Frowning, Prowl tapped the button and read the message. 

He read it again.

He transferred the message to his data pad and thanked the pilot, then made his way back to his seat.

After a few kliks, Jazz noticed that Prowl had not started working again, and was instead staring off into space. “Prowler?” he asked. “You all right? What did they want?”

“It was not work, as I thought.” Prowl looked at Jazz, and then at Hound and Bluestreak. “It was a very short message, and I think it was meant for all of us.” He glanced down at the data pad in his lap.

“Really?” Jazz craned his neck towards the data pad. “Who’s it from?” 

Prowl handed him the data pad. Jazz’s visor brightened when he read the message, and he glanced up at Hound and Bluestreak. 

“Well? What does it say?” asked Bluestreak impatiently. “Read it!”

Jazz read the message out loud. ‘”It says: _‘Thanks. Now I can rest easy. – Grouser’._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! :)
> 
> Thank you for all the comments and feedback. I appreciate every single one. ^.^

**Author's Note:**

> **Legend**
> 
>  
> 
> klik: a minute-ish  
> groon: an hour-ish  
> cycle: a day-ish  
> deca-cycle: 10 cycles, so about a week and a half-ish  
> orbital-cycle: a month-ish  
> vorn: works out to 80-ish of our years


End file.
